Until lately, the procedure of third-party intervention before the International Court of Justice provided for by Articles 62 and 63 of the Statute of the Court had been underutilized; as a result, there was scant judicial authority and comparatively little academic discussion on its use and limitations. This situation has now dramatically changed, as three recent cases before the Court have involved claims of third-party intervention: that between Tunisia and Libya, where Malta made the request to intervene; that between Libya and Malta, where Italy was the requesting state; and, most recently, the case between Nicaragua and the United States, where El Salvador made a declaration of intervention.