Pak violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention and and that appropriate remedies were due in this case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, ICJ President Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf told UN General Assembly. The ICJ had earlier ruled that Pak must review the death sentence awarded to Jadhav. While Pak did provide consular access to Jadhav after the ICJ judgement, it did so in the presence of Pakistani officials and CCTVs which, according to India, negated the spirit of the judgement

NEW DELHI: Pakistan violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention in the case of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, International Court of Justice (ICJ) President judge Abdulqawi Yusuf told the UN General Assembly.

Presenting the ICJ’s report to the 193-member General Assembly on Wednesday, Yusuf said the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, in its judgement of July 17, had found that Pakistan had violated its obligations under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention and that appropriate remedies were due in this case.

The bench led by Yusuf had ordered an “effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav”.

Yusuf elaborated on several aspects of the court’s ruling in Jadhav’s case while presenting his report to the General Assembly. He said one of the issues that the court had to examine was the question of whether the rights relating to consular access, set out in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, were in any manner to be excluded in a situation where the individual concerned was suspected of carrying out acts of espionage.

The court noted that there was no provision in the Vienna Convention containing a reference to cases of espionage, nor did the article concerning consular access, Article 36, exclude from its scope certain categories of persons, such as those suspected of espionage. Therefore, the court concluded that Article 36 was applicable in full to the case at hand, he said.

The ICJ was also called upon to interpret the meaning of the expression ‘without delay’ in the notification requirements of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention. The court noted that in its case, the question of how to determine what was meant by the term ‘without delay’ depended on the given circumstances of a case.

Taking into account the particular circumstances of the Jadhav case, the court noted that Pakistan making the notification some three weeks after Jadhav’s arrest constituted a breach of its obligation to inform India’s consular post without delay, as required by the provisions of the Vienna Convention.