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Suppose there are two countries which have a treaty or convention between them. One country thinks the other has infringed upon it.

Have there been any instances where the first country filed a suit in the courts of the other to make it abide by the treaty?

o0'.
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Anixx
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    I think in such cases they usually go to the International Court of Justice, or WTO. – apoorv020 Jan 17 '12 at 03:11
  • Trade Agreements and international agreements usually are not covered by internal courts, though I am no lawyer so I can't say it hasn't been tried. – MichaelF Jan 17 '12 at 11:48
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    Well, may be in US not covered, but in all other countries they are covered. Otherwise there is no point in making any agreements: International Court of Justice and other international courts have no enforcement powers. In Russia (and in the former USSR) international agreements have priority over normal laws except the constitution. – Anixx Jan 17 '12 at 12:23
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    @Anixx After their ratification only. – Gangnus Jan 28 '12 at 22:30
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    @Anixx: In colonial circumstances this happens. The Native American nations brought suit against the U.S. in U.S. courts, and Palestinians routinely sue for rights infringement and contract enfringement or property violation in Israeli courts (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). I am not sure if these entities are sufficiently differentiated to be considered countries, or just internally separated nationalities. – Ron Maimon Mar 29 '12 at 05:53

3 Answers3

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To my mind, every extradition case is an instance of "a foreign power attempting to compel another country to abide by International Law by means of that [second] country's judiciary".

extradition, in international law, the process by which one state, upon the request of another, effects the return of a person for trial for a crime punishable by the laws of the requesting state and committed outside the state of refuge

Pieter Geerkens
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    For extradition to happen, there is no need for one country to infringe a treaty. – Anixx Mar 27 '14 at 12:19
  • @Anixx: Read the question again - you are misinterpreting it. – Pieter Geerkens Mar 27 '14 at 21:21
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    I am the author of the question, so what can I misinterpret? – Anixx Mar 27 '14 at 21:25
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    @Anixx: Yes! Read what is actually written, not what you intended to write. – Pieter Geerkens Mar 27 '14 at 21:29
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    @PieterGeerkens nice move, but if you don't limit yourself to the title and consider the opening sentence, you get "two countries which have a treaty or convention between them. One country thinks the other has infringed upon it", which definitely does not apply to this answer. – o0'. Apr 18 '14 at 13:18
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EDIT

The answer to your question is no.

Countries are considered on equal footing, they are sovereign. For one country's court to compel another country the compelling court would have to have jurisdiction. The only possible scenario by which a court of another sovereign can have jurisdiction over another sovereign is if that other sovereign consents to jurisdiction. This of course would not be in that country's interests and as such they would not consent.

Furthermore, if France and the USA could just sue each other in each other's courts to resolve disputes what would be the point of diplomacy? France no more wants the USA to be able to sue France in US courts, than the USA wants France to be able to sue the US in French courts.

These principles come from long ago established international law. There are only four scenarios by which a court can exercise jurisdiction over a party:

    ○ Property in state attached at the commencement of law suit
    ○ Resident of the state
    ○ Consent, by appearing in court
    ○ Physically present in the state and served personally with process

For further explanation see Pennoyer v. Neff.

Additionally, you have the issue of sovereign immunity. The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property details how, and why, State's cannot be sued by other states unless they have consented.

The International Court of Justice is the exclusive court for state v. state claims.

ihtkwot
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    It is absolutely inevident how you concluded that once the treaty became a law, there is no need to enforce it through the court system. Yes, it becomes a law. But it does not mean that all treaties are always well abided. – Anixx Feb 01 '12 at 08:08
  • Of course sometimes a private party may be interested to use the treaty in the court and I suppose such cases are frequent. But I am interested in cases when not a private party, but another state (or its government) filed a suit. – Anixx Feb 01 '12 at 08:12
  • I never said that there was no need to enforce it through the court system. My point is that the idea of a Sovereign suing another Sovereign inside the other Sovereign's court system does not make conceptual sense. States, Sovereign actors, only avenue of recourse is through the International Court of Justice. If say you had a treaty where Country A agrees to give Country B some land. Country A then doesn't give it to Country B. Your question would suppose that Country A's courts would impose Country A to give said land to Country B. That simply does not happen. – ihtkwot Feb 01 '12 at 18:11
  • For a State to have jurisdiction there have historically been four scenarios that allowed it: Citizens; Defendant who consents; Property found in the sovereign territory attached at the commencement of the lawsuit; Physically present in the state and are personally served in the state. So in those situations where would a country fit into the scheme? – ihtkwot Feb 01 '12 at 18:26
  • As I already said International Court of Justice has no enforcement powers and its decisions are not binding. The only way to persuade any body or official to abide a law is to obtain a decision of a local court (which always has all enforcement powers). Also a question can go into ICJ only if the both parties agree. – Anixx Feb 01 '12 at 20:55
  • The last sentence you said is absolutely correct. Let me just state that I am speaking from a US perspective, so if you are in a different country things may work differently. Here in the US courts do not have any enforcement powers. That is basic separation of powers. Court decisions must be enforced by other parties. For a great analysis of unpopular US Supreme Court case decisions that were not enforced see Justice Stephen Breyer's "Making Our Democracy Work." I will double check with the few experts I know about countries suing countries, but I'm pretty confident my answer is correct. – ihtkwot Feb 02 '12 at 02:21
  • Interesting. I thought is a court decision is not enforced it either means a revolution or a failed state which does not control its territory. So you in the US decide yourself whether you want the court decision to work? Why the courts then at all? Does not your country have the marshals service that should enforce such decisions? Is not resisting a court decision a criminal offense? – Anixx Feb 02 '12 at 09:19
  • I am going to try to be as succinct as possible because this could be a very long discussion. The police, or other appropriate authorities, are the ones that actually enforce a court's decision. The court's decisions are followed and enforced by those parties because the other branches of government, and the public, believe the court is legitimate. If it is a common symptom of failed states that court decisions are not followed. Does that make sense? – ihtkwot Feb 02 '12 at 17:49
  • Indeed, but we do not discuss failed states, do we? In any normall country the court can declare an order, decree or other official document null and viod if it is issued by an authority, including the president, unlawfully. – Anixx Feb 02 '12 at 17:53
  • " For one country's court to compel another country the compelling court would have to have jurisdiction." - That's not the question. The question is if country A has forced country B to do something through country B's courts. – Lennart Regebro Nov 20 '13 at 06:25
  • @LennartRegebro that doesn't change the analysis, or the answer. France has never sued the US in US courts to force the US to do something, etc. – ihtkwot Nov 21 '13 at 18:40
  • @I disagree, it does change the analysis IMO. – Lennart Regebro Nov 21 '13 at 18:55
  • fair enough, but the answer is still no. countries do not do that for the legal reasons laid out above. Well, let me be more precise. I know of no COMMON LAW countries that do that. I suppose CIVIL LAW countries may be different, but the principles of sovereignty are fairly uniform across civil and common law countries, and have been since the time of Grotius. – ihtkwot Nov 21 '13 at 21:15
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I would say, it was and it is quite a usual thing. For all state workers are representatives of the state. And if a custom worker holds some goods, he does it by name of his state. And another state could send the case to a court. And it could be decided more or less honestly. Of course, until only relatively small sums were under question and there was no politics in the case.

The second variant - state A does something against agreements, state B goes to the court, state A says it was a mistake of a person C and punishes him or her and everybody is happy - justice won!

Of course, really important cases are solved by power (at best - economical and political, at worst - military). The key question is - what is more important for both sides - the existing relations or the case to be solved.

Gangnus
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  • This is not how things work. If you were talking about two US states then yes that would work similar to how you have described things. The original question deals with situations such as France suing the United States for breach of a treaty. However, treaties are set up with dispute resolution mechanisms set up in them. Sovereign nations are considered on equal footing from a jurisdiction standpoint so the only way that they could bring a case against another is through consent. That is fact. – ihtkwot Feb 10 '12 at 19:41
  • The first meaning of the world state is "country". So, of course, I meant independent states. 2. Your comment does not contain any arguments against mine, so, it is irrelevant, let alone its being a fact.
    • – Gangnus Feb 20 '15 at 13:17
  • I would love to see you provide an actual example in the form of "France v. United States" filed in US courts. Or something similar. Maritime salvage cases are the only thing I can think of close to this, and even there I believe they are filed in an international body. – ihtkwot Feb 23 '15 at 00:42
  • @ihtkwot I thought I have this explained... Maybe that is the problem of my English... 1. Any state has a Customs law or a set of such. And all of them have some mutual Customs Treaties. 2. Let it be USA, if you wish. If the France Ministry of Defense is buying something from Lockheed, the goods are passing the USA customs. If there is some serious misunderstanding, it is solved according to the law by the court. Where is the problem? – Gangnus Feb 23 '15 at 09:34
  • Gangus, in your example the dispute is between Lockheed (a private company) and the French government. – ihtkwot Apr 08 '15 at 14:26
  • @ihtkwot It could be. And in 1/3 of cases it will be. But in another 1/3 cases it will be the dispute between American and French state structures. The last 1/3 covers three-side disputes. – Gangnus Apr 09 '15 at 07:11
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    @Gangus, can you provide some sort of link as evidence? I'm having difficulty figuring out how that would look in a court system. The evidence doesn't have to be in English, I'll take the time to figure out how to translate it if need be. – ihtkwot Apr 09 '15 at 19:51
  • I guess my major hang up is this part of the question "Have there been any instances where the first country filed a suit in the courts of the other to make it abide by the treaty?" So, that is why I want to see one country suing another country in that court. – ihtkwot Apr 09 '15 at 19:52
  • @ihtkwot Sorry, I do not agree. Never a country really participates in the process. It could be SAID that it is a country, but always it is a government or much more often it is some much smaller official structure. In USA they call it STATE, but in other countries different language could be used. But the sense remains the same. So, a process of some official structure of one country against another official structure of another country should be enough as an example. And if you do not agree that my example will be just the case, can you provide at least SOME arguments against it? – Gangnus Apr 10 '15 at 07:10
  • @Gangus the question asks if one country filed suit against another country in their courts. I don't know how that can be any more clear. I have already explained the relevant principles of international law that explain why the answer is no. – ihtkwot Apr 12 '15 at 18:27
  • @ihtkwot I have read your arguments. They are very weak. Too many errors. I'll mention two of them. You have forgotten that states could make an agreement that the discussions connected to some questions could be solved in some foretold court of one of these states or of some third state. And it is used. Your second great fallacy is that you don't understand that the law system of USA is not the sole one in the world. – Gangnus Apr 13 '15 at 08:37
  • @Gangus, your first point is a very good one and I had not considered that. Your second point doesn't make much sense to me since the legal principles I'm referring to have a long historical tradition tracing back to Dutch theorist Hugo Grotius. – ihtkwot Apr 13 '15 at 22:10