The public hearings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), principal judicial organ of the United Nations, to be held from 23 to 25 February 2004 in the case concerning the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (request for advisory opinion), will be broadcast live and in full on the Court’s official website (www.icj-cij.org).

The Court has decided to provide video coverage of its hearings on the Internet in response to the exceptional interest in this case shown by the general public, civil society and the media worldwide, and in view of the Court’s very limited seating space for members of the public and journalists at the Peace Palace in The Hague. The Court intends to provide such webstreaming in the future for cases of a similar nature.

The hearings will be filmed by the Court’s permanent network of cameras in the Great Hall of Justice at the Peace Palace. Audio streaming will be available only in the Court’s two official languages, English and French.

The programme of hearings scheduled by the Court can be found under Press Release 2004/9. The names of the various speakers will not be indicated on the viewing screen for technical reasons. You will hear the name announced by the President when the speaker takes the floor or you can check the list of members of delegations elsewhere on the Court’s website (click on “Docket” then on the hyperlink for the case and lastly on “Oral Pleadings”, where you will find a list of the transcripts (CR references) of the oral statements arranged by half-day session. Each transcript starts with a list of the members of the various delegations).

Practical information

To ensure that the webcast hearings reach the widest possible audience, it has been decided to provide for two streaming options that will be suitable for different types of Internet connection:

1. audio and video streaming for fast broadband connections;

2. audio and video streaming for slower ordinary telephone connections.

To follow the webcasting of the Court’s hearings in the best possible conditions, we recommend the use of a recent model of computer and an up-to-date version of the Windows Media Player software.

It is still possible that there may be temporary pauses in the live video coverage due to high traffic on the Court’s website. We recommend in such cases that you try again later, either during the hearings or afterwards, when the same footage will be available via the archive link.

If you miss the live hearings (for example, because of website congestion or of the time difference with your country) you can always click on “Video Archive”. Here you can retrieve the completed webcast hearings which will be archived after every half-day session, like the written transcripts.

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BY TOPIC: Israel’s Apartheid Wall