THE International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that US aid to the anti-Sandinista Contras in Nicaragua is in violation of international law.
The World Court verdict came less than 48 hours after the House of Representatives in Washington gave narrow support to the Reagan Administration’s new $100 million aid package for the Contras.
The United States was absent from court yesterday for the reading of the judgment. The day before Nicaragua filed its suit back in April 1984, the US Administration informed the court that it would not recognise its rulings related to Central America for two years.
But Washington contested the case until November of that year when the 15-judge court swept aside US objections as to the admissibility of the case and the court’s competence to deal with it. In May that year the court had already given a provisional ruling, ordering the US to stop support for the Contras and end the covert mining of Nicaraguan harbours.
Ruling yesterday on the substance of the case, the International Court of Justice said in a series of decisions that the US had breached customary international law forbidding the use of force and intervention in the affairs of another state.
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The court also upheld the Nicaraguan claim that the US was liable to pay reparation. Nicaragua claimed it had already suffered more than $370 million in economic damages.