释义 |
reciprocity n. A provision of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under which a state may limit its consent to the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction. This form of consent to suit imposes the prior condition that in any future litigation that state may invoke a claimant state’s narrower terms of general consent to ICJ jurisdiction. Reciprocity thus enables the consenting state to avoid suit on the same basis that would be available to the claimant state, if the latter were a defendant in similar ICJ litigation. See also optional clause. |