designated or understood whole). Particular stress is then laid by the Greek
Government on the phrases given by Robert to illustrate the use of the
word notamment, in the majority of which the word is preceded by the word
et, but still denotes merely a particular instance of a wider genus or
category. The Greek Government also cites sirnilar exarnples of this use of
"et notamment" given in the Dictionnaire de IAcadémie française and in
Littré, Dictionnaire de. la langue française. On the basis of this linguistic
evidence, it maintains that the natural, ordinary and current meaning of
this expression absolutely precludes the Greek reservation from being read
as covering disputes regarding territorial status in addition to, and quite
separately from, disputes regarding matters of domestic jurisdiction.
52. The grammatical interpretation of reservation (b) advanced by
Greece leads to a result which is legally somewhat surprising. Disputes
conceming matters of "domestic jurisdiction" and disputes relating to
"territorial status" are different concepts which, in treaty provisions,
including Article 39, paragraph 2, of the General Act, and in reservations
to treaties or to acceptances of jurisdiction under Article 36, paragraph 2,
of the Statute, have been kept quite separate and distinct. Furthermore, the
integration of "disputes relating to territorial status" within the category of
disputes concerning matters of "domestic jurisdiction", largely deprives
the former of any significance. Consequently, only if the grammatical
arguments were compelling and decisive would the Court be convinced
that such is the effect which ought to be given to the words "et, notamment," in reservation (b). But those arguments do not appear to the Court
to be so compelling as has been suggested.
53. In the first place, the grammatical argument overlooks the commas
placed both before and after "notamment".To put the matter at its lowest,
one possible purpose of these commas rnight have been to make it clear
that in the phrase "et, notamment, les différend'' etc., the word "et" is
intended to be a true conjunctive introducing a category of "différends"
additional to those already specified.
54. Another point overlooked by the argument is that the meaning
attributed to "et, notamment," by Greece is grammatically not the only,
although it may be the most frequent, use of that expression. Robert's
Dictionnaire itself goes no further than to Say of the word notamment that it
is "most often" used to draw attention to one of several particular objects
forrning part of a collectivity previously indicated or implied. The question
whether in the present instance the expression 'kt, notamment," has the
meaning attributed to it by Greece thus depends on the context in which
those words were used in Greece's instrument of accession and is not a
matter simply of their preponderant linguistic usage. Even a purely grammatical interpretation of reservation (b), therefore, leaves open the possibility that the words "et, notamment, les différends ayant trait au statut
territorial de la Grèce" were intended to specify an autonomous category of
disputes additional to those concerning matters of domesticjurisdiction,