 Let me turn now to the internal judicial practice of the court and explain what happens behind the scenes that is after the parties have submitted to the court their final submissions and the court begins its deliberation up to the judgment. From that moment onwards, when final submissions have been made after the end of the oral pleadings, what happens within the court and how are judgments drafted? The internal judicial practice of the court is detailed in a resolution the court adopted in 1976 and which is posted on its website. It's called Resolution Concerning the Internal Judicial Practice of the Court. And I have served as First Secretary of the Court in a previous professional life. Let me set out the essential elements about how things are done behind the scenes. And on that basis, let me give you also some reading tips when you read ICJ cases. One month before the beginning of the public hearings, a summary of the arguments of the parties presented in their respective written pleadings is distributed to the judges of the court. The summary of the arguments of the parties is an internal document prepared by the registry. It is already a first digestion of the case presenting the issues in the logical order. But of course, because all along the way the judges and the judges at dark receive the written submissions of the parties, they do not wait for the summary of arguments prepared by the registry to work on the case. A second document is prepared by the registry. It is called In French de qualité and it summarizes the procedural history of the case and will constitute the first part of the judgment of the court. It is in that part that you'll find reproduced the various submissions of the parties presented at the end of their respective written pleadings and also the final submissions read out in court at the end of the public hearings by the agent of each party. And by comparing what each party exactly asks from the court at the end of each round of written and oral pleadings, you can actually see if and to what extent the dispute has evolved throughout the proceedings, if the proceedings brought the parties closer together and resulted in some claims being dropped, etc. The dispute that the court has to adjudicate upon is the dispute as it is reflected in the final submissions of the parties, not the dispute as it stood at the very beginning of the proceedings. And very often there is a difference between the two, which proves again that the sheer presence of the court has an effect on the scope of the dispute and that the virtue of judicial proceeding is to bring parties closer together and reduce the dispute to its essentials. Because the court's judicial function is to settle the dispute or rather what remains of the dispute, it must only answer the final submissions of the parties. A third document is prepared by the registry under the supervision of the presidents of the court. It is called the list of issues. The list of issues is a list of questions logically articulated with references to the relevant parts of the written and oral pleadings of the parties. The list of issues is approved by the full court during a short deliberation which is held just after the end of the second round of public hearings. It is then indeed that it can be finally adjusted in light of the final submissions presented by each party. After the list of issues is adopted, each judge sitting in the judge in the case is called to write within a certain period of time a note and present his or her views on the various issues raised by the dispute. The judges' notes are confidential and the judges are free to follow the structure of the list of issues or not to answer all issues or not. The notes are translated and distributed within the court at a certain date. If a judge has not yet finalized its notes, the notes of the other judges are not handed over to that judge in order not to influence his or her views. A few weeks after all judges' notes have been distributed, the court meets and begins its substantial deliberation. It is called Article 5 deliberation because it is envisaged under Article 5 of the resolution concerning the internal judicial practice of the court. The deliberation is held behind closed doors of the deliberation chamber and it is of course confidential with only a few members of the registry and interpreters present. Each judge is called to present his or her views orally and judges speak in the inverse order of seniority starting with Judge Adark, then the most recently elected judges and ending with the president. The deliberation may take several days or weeks depending on the complexity of the case. The president concludes the debate and the judges are free to react, conduct the debate and the judges are free to react to each other's views and raise questions. At the end of the deliberation, the president wraps up the debate. It is indeed at that moment that the actual decision of the court is taken. It is at that moment of the deliberation, in light of the views expressed by each judge, that one knows where the majority of the court lies, who has won and who has lost and on which issues. After the president has summed up the position of the court that is made clear in which direction the judgment would go, a drafting committee is elected. The drafting committee is usually made of three or four judges and they must of course reflect the views of the majority. The president is ex-officio, member of the drafting committee, if he or she is part of the majority and then two or three other judges are elected. The drafting committee is assisted by the registry and the judges by their respective clerks. After having met several times, the drafting committee produces a preliminary draft judgment in both French and English, which is then circulated to the other judges. And those other judges have a few weeks to submit written amendments, on substance or on form, and then the drafting committee meets again, considers those amendments, adopts some, reject others and issues another draft judgment. It is the draft for what is called the first reading. The first reading of the draft judgment takes place in the deliberation chamber, with all judges sitting in the case present, and the draft is read out by legal officers from the registry, paragraph by paragraph in both languages, French and English. After each paragraph, any judge is free to express his or her views to suggest amendments, a better way to phrase the reasoning, etc. The first reading is not supposed to be a second deliberation, but sometimes very substantial exchanges take place again. And it is at the end of the first reading that judges have to announce whether they intend to deliver a separate or a descending opinion. After the first reading, which can take days, and after having also received the draft separate or descending opinions, the drafting committee meets again and finalizes a draft for what is called the second reading. During the second reading, only the paragraphs that have changed in the meantime are read out and discussed. And at the end of the second reading, judges are each called in turn to vote on the operative part of the judgment. Judges may vote in favor or against, but they may not abstain. The vote is recorded and made public in the judgment, under each subparagraph of the operative part. And once the judges have voted, that's it. The judgment becomes resiudicata for them and for the court. It is then up to the registry to finalize the text of the judgment, to collect the judges' opinions, and to prepare copies that will be distributed to the parties at the end of the public reading. The public reading takes place in the Great Hall of Justice at the Peace Palace a few days or weeks after the end of the second reading. The internal procedure I just described is applicable in cases of judgments, including judgments on preliminary objections, and in cases of advisory opinions. It is a long and detailed procedure, and it is of course shortened when the court has to order provisional measures. In such a case, there is only one deliberation and one reading of the draft is prepared by the registry, and there is no drafting committee of judges. The procedure is long and detailed. It takes place in both languages, but it is also extremely deliberative and rational. A judgment of the court is the result of a real judicial deliberative process, with great minds exchanging their views and many pairs of eyes going time and time again over the same draft and the same questions. It is also important to remember that any decision by the ICJ is the product of a collective process in which no one single person has the upper hand, the rationality, the quality of the judgments, of the reasoning that you find in the court's decision stem from this lengthy, deliberative and collective process. However, now that you know how judgments of the ICJ are made, you can also better understand what a judicial process is about. It is about letting the disputing parties present their arguments and evidence on an equal footing, then take a decision about the dispute, and then, after the substantive decision is taken, put in writing the best available reasons in favor of the decision that has been taken. Therefore, I strongly suggest that when you read a decision of the court, or of any court, or tribunal, be it domestic or international, that you start by looking usually at the beginning of the decision, what is respectively claimed by the parties, and then you turn immediately to the very end of the operative part. That is the actual decision taken by the court. And only after you turn to everything that is between, that is the judicial reasoning of the court. The decisions are drafted in such a way as to make the conclusion, the decision, inescapable, as if, with such reasoning, only one conclusion could be reached. But of course, the reasoning itself is a choice, a choice made on the basis of the decision which has already been taken. By saying that I'm not suggesting that judgments are political decisions wrapped up in legal arguments, and that the judge would be always free to come up with any sort of outcome, not at all. Because the judge is compelled to give legally articulated reasons for its choices, the legal language which serves to justify its choices will considerably constrain and limit those collective choices and direct the judge to a certain outcome. But choices will nevertheless be made. And in light of this, let me suggest that the task of a counsel is to try to convince the judge that some choices cannot be reasonably made under the law, that the law leads to a certain result that are more easily justifiable under the law, or at least that the outcome favorable to the counsel's client can be perfectly and convincingly justified under the law. And is also well-grounded, in fact, facts, being of paramount importance, if not central in any judicial settlement.