Renowned Law Professor Carlos Bernal Discusses the I.C.J. Option

Professor Carlos Bernal

A group of reporters from various media houses are tonight in Mexico City in anticipation of a visit to the International Court of Justice in the Hague sometime in November. That tour is called Fear to Facts: Demystifying the I.C.J. and is being organized by the United States Embassy and sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Channel Five’s Marleni Cuellar will form part of the tour to the I.C.J. Today in Mexico City, the group met with Professor Carlos Bernal Berea who is an International Law lecturer who represented Mexico in a case before the I.C.J. Vernal spoke of his experiences in that case and also on the territorial dispute by Guatemala for which a referendum is scheduled for April 2019. While the Mexican case against the U.S. does not involve a territorial dispute, Bernal offered his views on the matter.

Carlos Bernal, Professor at I.T.A.M.

“The Guatemalan claim is a territorial claim.  In the past twenty years the court has settled many, many territorial claims.  Honduras, El Salvador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, many, many cases and many African cases in Africa and they have been enormously successful.  Your position, I understand it, says if the ruling of the court; it gave, perhaps, Honduras more rights than El Salvador.  El Salvador went and said I want to reclaim, I want to go to the court again and the court said the judgment is final, there is no appeal.”