국제사법재판소의 반소에 관한 연구

A Counter-claim in the International Court of Justice (hereafter, 'ICJ') is a claim that a defendant files against the plaintiff in the same proceedings that the plaintiff has instituted against the defendant. By allowing a defendant to sue against the plaintiff, it makes it possible to settle the other disputes in one procedure. The counter-claim has the propose of procedural economy and the convenience of court management. A counter-claim has another additional purpose, the proper administration of justice. So, an application by the defendant which can threaten the ICJ's proceedings and infringe the plaintiff's rights, can not be included in a counter-claim. Under these mutually competing purposes and concepts, the counter-claim system of the ICJ has been developing through the jurisprudence and the Rules of the ICJ & PCIJ. Specially, after the adoption of the 1978 ICJ Rules, counter-claim cases, which were regulated by Article 80, have been proceeded by independent procedures. And, the admissibility of the counter-claim has been decided in the form of Order, dispatched from the principal claims. A counter-claim's admissibility consists of three elements, which are ⅰ) being a claim in its own right, which means that a counter-claim is not a mere defense against the principal claim, but an independent claim, ⅱ) the direct connection between the principal claim and counter claim, ⅲ) the ICJ's jurisdiction. The ICJ's judgment on the admissibility of the counter-claim and the purposes of the counter-claim, which are procedural economy, convenience of the court management and proper administration of justice, have played a key role. According to these landmark purposes, the future of the ICJ's counter-claim system will be shaped.