II
4.
As regards Rule 67, paragraph 1, of the Rules, both the French and
English versions provide that it is the “party” seeking the revision that must be
unaware of the new evidence at the time the judgment was delivered3; it does
not mention lack of knowledge of the evidence on the part of the “Court” before
the delivery of its judgment.
5.
In this respect, it is important to note that the instruments governing the
functioning of other international courts and dealing with revision matters4
require that both the Court and the party seeking a revision must have been
within the aforesaid lack of knowledge; this is the case under Article 61 (1) of
the Statute of the International Court of Justice,5 Article 25 of the Protocol
establishing the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African
States,6 and Article 80 (1) of the Rules of the European Court of Human Rights.7
This is equally the case under Article 48 (1) of the Protocol on the Statute of the
3
The French version of Article 28 (3) of the Protocol also provides that the Court may review
its decision “en cas de survenance de preuves”, whereas the English version of the same
clause provides that the Court may review its decision “in the light of new evidence”; the two
linguistic versions of Rule 67, paragraph 1, of the Rules, for their part, refers to the
“discovery” (”découverte”) of such an evidence. The aforesaid terminological disparities do
not in my view have particular legal consequences in regard to consideration of the
admissibility of review applications.
4
The
American Human Rights Convention like the Statute and Rules of the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights do not contain provisions on the revision of judgments; these
aforementioned three instruments only make reference to the issue of interpretation of
judgments. See, however, the application for revision of the judgment in the matter of Genie
Lacayo v. Nicaragua filed by the Inter-American Commission but declared inadmissible by
the Court in its Order of 13 September 1997, Case of Genie-Lacayo v. Nicaragua
(Application for Judicial Review of the Judgment on Merits, Reparations and Costs), Order of
the Court.
5
“An application for revision of a judgment may be made only when it is based upon the
discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the
judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, always
provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence”.
6
“An application for revision of a decision may be made only when it is based upon the
discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the
decision was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision,
provided always that such ignorance was not due to negligence”.
7
“A party may, in the event of the discovery of a fact which might by its nature have a
decisive influence and which, when a judgment was delivered, was unknown to the Court and
could not reasonably have been known to that party, request the Court, within a period of six
months after that party acquired knowledge of the fact, to revise that judgment.” The
European Human Rights Convention, for its part, does not contain any provision on revision
of the judgments of the Court; however, see the jurisprudence of the European Court in this
regard, infra, footnote 15.