paragraph 156 in volume 2, chapter 9, Jurisdiction and Admissibility: General Concepts

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Time is a factor that influences the Court’s jurisdiction in several ways. Ratione personae it is necessary that the parties to the case are parties to the Statute or have undertaken the obligations of a non-party to the Statute at the time of the institution of the proceedings. As the Court has said: ‘The question whether the applicant State was or was not a party to the Statute of the Court at the time of the institution of the present proceedings is a fundamental one.’¹ The same holds…