the It goes without saying that a State making such a declaration has or to make a discretionary competence to make or not to make such a declaration, tions. declaration accompanied with temporal, material and territoriai1 reserva at the Rwanda's declaration did not come with any reservation, consequently, ance of the time of submission of the Application, there was no limit to the accept this matter, Court's competence with respect to Applications from individuals. In January 2015. Rwanda even submitted a response to the Application, and this, on 23 Subsequently, In its response, Rwanda did not challenge the competence of the Court. hearing. Both and considering the facts of the case, the Court deCided to hold a public said public parties were notified on 4 January 2016 that the Court would hold the hearing on 4 March 2016. notified A few days prior to the public hearing, that is, on 1 March 2016, Rwanda hearing, the the Court of the withdrawal of the declaration. On the eve of the public 2 In the said Legal Counsel of the African Union officially notified the Court accordingly. the effect of notification, Rwanda maintained that the withdrawal of its declaration had requested a suspending all matters affecting it and pending before the Court. It also makes a ruling hearing on the issue of its withdrawal before the Court, before the Court the public on the case filed before it. Despite this notification, the Court rightly held , whereas the hearing as previously decided. It heard the Applicant's representative respondent State did not appear. and At this point, the Court should have taken notice of this failure to appear not appear must continued with the procedure. As noted by the ICJ: "A State which does continue without accept the consequences of its decisions, the first of which is that the case will ion on "nonits participation."' For its part, the Institute of International Law in its resolut non-appearance appearance before the ICJ" indicated in the same vein that: "A State's ry jurisdiction of the International Court of C/. GHARBI (Fakhri): "The status of declarations of acceptance of the compulso Jid.erudit.orgfiderudit/043707ar http:/ : on Available 274. ~ 213 p. 2002, 0°2, vol.43, Droit, du Justice" I Les Cahiers 1 to AU Commission, and this by virtue of the Strictly speaking, notification of the withdrawal should have been addressed ons made under sub-article 6 above shall "Declarati : Protocol the of (7) 34 Article parallelism of the forms, because under State Parties". the to be deposited with the Secretary-General, who shall transmit copies thereof 2 3 ICJ: Case concerning page 24, § 28 June 1986, Rec, 1986, military and paramilitary activities In and against Nicaragua, Judgment of 27