In Merlin, implementation of several classes in javax.swing has static variables of java.awt.Component:

javax.swing.ImageIcon - uses component
javax.swing.plat.basic.BasicComboBoxUI - use DefaultListCellRenderer

Because each component bounds to an app context, the component that is stored in the static variables in Swing class will bounded to the app context of the loader. If the loader goes away, the app context will never get GC because it is cached in Swing.