The International Court of Justice is to deliver its order on India’s request for the indication of provisional measures, that could put a temporary halt on the execution of Khulbhushan Jadhav.
Jadhav has been accused by Pakistan of espionage and terrorism, but India says he was kidnapped, framed and sentenced following a “farcical” trial.
The decision on India’s request will be delivered at 12 pm local time (3.30 pm India) in a public sitting at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the UN’s principal judicial organ, also known as the “World Court’ said on Wednesday, just two days after public hearings on the matter.
Dr. Deepak Mittal, joint secretary of India's Ministry of External Affairs, right, and his delegation wait for judges to enter the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, May 15, 2017.
The decision will be read by the President of the ICJ, Ronny Abraham, who was one of the 11 ICJ judges who heard the arguments put forward by the Indian and Pakistani delegations during two intense one and a half hour sessions.
During Monday’s hearings , open to members of the public and broadcast live, India’s Counsel Harish Salve accused Pakistan of “egregious violations” of the Vienna Convention on Consular Access, which he said allowed “no exception” and alleged that Pakistan had kidnapped Mr. Jadhav from Iran, and had framed and extracted a confession from him.
India based its case on the Vienna Convention rather than on a 2008 agreement on consular access between India and Pakistan, he said. However, Pakistan’s Agent, the country’s Ambassador to the UAE Moazzam Ahmad Khan ridiculed the suggestion that Mr. Jadhav’s execution was imminent. “We have no reason to stop the canary from singing,” he told the court. Pakistan’s Counsel Qureshi dubbed Mr. Jadhav a “terrorist” and accused India of ambushing it with the push for provisional measures, while Mr. Jadhav had 150 days to appeal his sentence. While India sought to highlight previous ICJ cases to point to jurisdiction in the case, Pakistan countered by pointing to instances in which India had questioned its remit.
While it is not the fastest decision to have been made by the ICJ (in the LeGrand case that also involved a potential execution and was between Germany and the United States the order was given within a day), Thursday’s decision will be among the speedier ones. The decision only pertains to India’s request for th indication of provisional measures, and not on its wider application regarding Mr. Jadhav’s situation.
