The International Court of Justice has made available on its website the Annexes to the Application instituting proceedings in the matter of a request relating to the return of property confiscated in criminal proceedings (Equatorial Guinea v France), filed 29 September 2022. The extensive Annexes help researchers and students to understand the background of the Application and to place it in its complex legal context. For scholars, historians and enthusiasts alike, the Annexes provide a unique window to the long courtroom saga of 42 Avenue de Foch, its eleven supercars, and Michael Jackson’s diamond-crusted gloves.
Doctors’ Commons International thanks the ICJ Registrar for the positive response to our request and for their efforts at informative and transparent distribution of the public court documents. We note that the contents of the Annexes themselves had become public documents in the normal order, and by posting them on the website the Court only made them more accessible and available than before. We look forward to continuing cooperation with the Court and other international tribunals in the research and highlighting of key court materials.
As the latest twist in the epic, on 12 September 2025 the ICJ dismissed Equatorial Guinea’s application to prevent France from liquidating the assets, observing that Article 57, paragraph 3 (c) of the United Nations Convention against Corruption does not mandate restitution of seized property itself upon request, but rather reserves the requested state ‘some discretion as to the course of action ultimately adopted’ to fulfil its obligations.