63. New cases have kept the docket crowded.

Gone are the days when the Court's docket was virtually empty.

We will now take up the criminal docket. Case number one.

The case of Frederick Manion will be placed first on the trial docket.

For the sake of the docket, can you give me a clue as to his plea?

But perhaps the greatest significance of these cases lies in their very presence on the docket of Europe s highest rights tribunal.

In recent years, the Court's docket has grown significantly and a number of disputes have been settled, but resources remain scarce.

The cases on the Tribunal's docket are by definition large and complex, and hence our proceedings are necessarily lengthy and costly.

The Court issued an Order recording the discontinuance of the proceedings and directing the removal of the case from the Court docket.

The cases included on the docket over the last year illustrate the variety of international disputes that are customarily referred to the Court.

The other two multiple defendant trials on the Tribunal's docket involve six and seven defendants, respectively this would be eight if fugitive Djordjević is apprehended.

We must take note of this year's remarkable accomplishments by the Court, which has reduced the number of cases in the docket from 21 to 12.

In addition to the seven cases described above, the following cases were on the docket of the International Court of Justice during the period under review

As is stated in the report, 21 contentious cases were pending in the Court last year, whereas in the 1970s it had only a few cases on its docket.

I also warned that further growth of the trial docket would make achieving that ambitious target entirely dependent on at least some cases being disposed of by guilty pleas.

Although it still represents a substantial amount of work, 12 cases is indeed a perfectly reasonable number of cases to have on the docket of the International Court of Justice.

In addition to addressing the cases on its docket, the Court must be prepared to examine, with priority over other matters, all requests it receives for the indication of provisional measures.

In conclusion, he wished to remind the Committee that there was a case on the docket of the International Court of Justice directly related to the issue of expulsion of aliens.

Sir Robert YEWDALL JENNINGS (President of the International Court of Justice) The International Court of Justice continues to have a full docket of cases there are at present 11 cases at various stages of the procedure.

Based on my experience as an international prosecutor, and speaking as a strong supporter of the ICC, I believe that it would be a serious mistake to add the crime of aggression to the Court s docket now.

If all of the remaining cases in which there are pending 11 bis motions are successfully referred, a total of 11 accused or 10 additional cases will be removed from the Tribunal's docket, and that will certainly accelerate the Tribunal's work.

In the Case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean, a case which is still pending on the docket, Chile and the European Community have taken advantage of the ad hoc system.

As a result of the Court's efforts, the total number of 21 cases on the docket of the Court, which I reported to the Assembly a year ago, had dropped to 11 by the end of the period under review.

Notably, the Court significantly reduced the number of cases on its docket by rendering 10 final judgments eight in cases concerning the legality of the use of force, one on the issue of certain property, and one concerning a frontier dispute.

Recent additions to the list are the case between Hungary and Slovakia over the Danube dams and the request from the World Health Organization for an advisory opinion concerning the use of nuclear weapons the only advisory opinion request in the docket at present.

In addition, we relied to a large extent on the 8,000 page Lebanese case docket handed over to the Commission in order to understand the dimensions of the case, to draw up a preliminary list of potential witnesses and suspects and to focus on possible leads to pursue.

Particulars of the Court apos s decisions and also of the cases in its docket are given, as members of the General Assembly will know, not only in the Court apos s own report but also in chapter II, section A of the 1993 report of the Secretary General on the work of the organization (A 48 1).