The Practice of Appending Declarations at International Courts and Tribunals

The possibility for judges and arbitrators to append individual opinions is a discretionary right that has existed since the early stages of international adjudication. From its inception, clear boundaries have existed between the three different kinds of individual opinions, namely, declarations, separate opinions and dissenting opinions. Despite these boundaries, the practice on appending declarations shows that they have never been circumscribed, to merely record the fact of the concurrence or dissent of a judge. In consequence, some analyses exist in an attempt to explain what the differences between declarations and other individual opinions are. The most recent practice from judges when appending declarations, however, seems to run counter to the conclusions provided in the said analyses. This fact leads to the question as to what is, in the light of this recent practice of appending individual opinions, the difference between declarations and separate or dissenting opinions. This article attempts to address the said question and as a consequence the relevance of declarations in international adjudication.