القرائن القانونية وحجيتها بالإثبات أمام محكمة العدل الدولية (دراسة تطبيقية)

The legal presumption and its probative force before the International Court of Justice ( A practical study)

Studying legal presumptions and their evidentiary value before the International Court of Justice is critical. This is due to the significant role legal presumptions play in evidence presentation and resolving disputes brought before the International Court of Justice. Legal presumptions are challenging pieces of evidence that rely on the court’s inference and interpretation beyond the presumption itself, considered as evidence to substantiate the claims of the disputing parties. Especially since no explicit provision in international law clearly refers to legal presumptions and their evidentiary rules, the court resorts to what is mentioned in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice as a basis for legal presumption.
Furthermore, the International Court of Justice has used legal presumptions to settle many international disputes, particularly border disputes, most of which were resolved through legal presumption when the disputing parties failed to present evidence to substantiate their claims.
Therefore, this thesis aims to cover the legal provisions regulating the proof by legal presumptions and to deduce the necessary conditions for them, given their lack of clear and explicit mention in the Statute of the International Court of Justice. It also aims to illustrate the legal impact of proof by legal presumption in terms of the subject of proof, the transfer of the burden of proof, and the judicial applications that clarify the practical aspect of international adjudication.
In this context, the paper is divided into three chapters, including the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter presents the concept and legal basis of legal presumptions and their proof before the International Court of Justice. The second chapter discusses the effect of legal presumption in proof before the International Court of Justice.
In conclusion, we have reached a set of results and suggestions, the most important being that legal presumption is considered one of the most essential indirect evidences used by the court when the disputing parties fail to present the necessary evidence to resolve the dispute and substantiate their claims. While the disputing parties must comply, the court faces the issue of its decisions being optional for all disputing states. Therefore, we propose that all member states in the Statute accept the court’s mandatory jurisdiction and that there should be an explicit provision on legal presumptions in the Statute to prevent controversy and objections from the disputing parties.