Iura novit curia e riqualificazione giuridica del fatto: una breve riflessione sulla giurisprudenza della Corte internazionale di giustizia

Iura Novit Curia and Legal Re-Qualification of the Alleged Facts: Some Reflections on the Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice In civil law systems the Latin maxim iura novit curia means not only that “the judge knows the rules”, thus solving the problem of the source of such knowledge, but also that civil courts are not forbidden to give judgment according to rules of law different from those indicated by the parties in the pleadings. The purpose of this article is to verify the application of iura novit curia in contentious proceedings before the International Court of Justice. In particular, the question is whether and how the ICJ has the power and the duty to carry out a wide-ranging search for the law applicable to the case heard before it and whether, therefore, the Court may change the legal classification of the facts relied on in the case and thus depart from the legal rules proposed by the parties.