ABSTRACT
This chapter examines whether the judgments of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague have fostered and continue to foster the crystallisation of sustainable development principles in the field of public international law. It discusses the judicial statements relevant to the principles of sustainable development made in reference to the seminal Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros case, and in the context of other later cases in the ICJ. The chapter analyses how the decision reflects both the principles of equity and of sustainable use of natural resources, as well as transparency and public participation, and integration. The ICJ first included the concept of sustainable development in the Advisory Opinion on Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in 1997, declaring that the principle was part of the body of international law relating to the environment. The purpose of this agreement was to facilitate the construction of a hydraulic power plant system consisting of two locks on the Hungarian-Czechoslovak section of the Danube.
