International Court of Justice


The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is the main judicial organ of the UN.







It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York (United States of America).

     The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). The idea for the creation of an international court to arbitrate international disputes first arose during the various conferences that produced the Hague Conventions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The body subsequently established, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, was the precursor of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was established by the League of Nations.

 From 1921 to 1939 the PCIJ issued more than 30 decisions and delivered nearly as many advisory opinions, though none were related to the issues that threatened to engulf Europe in second world war in 20 years. The ICJ was established in 1945 by the San Francisco Conference, which also created the UN. All members of the UN are parties to the statute of the ICJ, and nonmembers may also become parties. The court’s inaugural sitting was in 1946.


The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The Court decides disputes between countries, based on the voluntary participation of the States concerned. If a State agrees to participate in a proceeding, it is obligated to comply with the Court’s decision


The ICJ is a continuing and autonomous body that is permanently in session. It consists of 15 judges—no two of whom may be nationals of the same state—who are elected to nine-year terms by majority votes in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. The judges, one-third of whom are elected every three years, are eligible for reelection. The judges elect their own president and vice president, each of whom serves a three-year term, and can appoint administrative personnel as necessary.

The seat of the ICJ is at The Hague, but sessions may be held elsewhere when the court considers it desirable to do so. The official languages of the court are French and English.

The court’s primary function is to pass judgment upon disputes between sovereign states. Only states may be parties in cases before the court, and no state can be sued before the World Court unless it consents to such an action. Under article 36 of the court’s statute, any state may consent to the court’s compulsory jurisdiction in advance by filing a declaration to that effect with the UN secretary-general, and by 2000 more than 60 countries had issued such a declaration. The declaration (the “optional clause”) may be made unconditionally, or it may be made on the condition of reciprocity on the part of other states or for a certain time. In proceedings before the court, written and oral arguments are presented, and the court may hear witnesses and appoint commissions of experts to make investigations and reports when necessary.


Cases before the ICJ are resolved in one of three ways:

 (1) they can be settled by the parties at any time during the proceedings;

 (2) a state can discontinue the proceedings and withdraw at any point; or

 (3) the court can deliver a verdict. 


The ICJ decides disputes in accordance with international law as reflected in international conventions, international custom, general principles of law recognized by civilized nations, judicial decisions, and writings of the most highly qualified experts on international law. Although the judges deliberate in secret, their verdicts—rendered in both English and French—are delivered in open court. Any judge who does not agree in whole or in part with the court’s decision may file a separate opinion, and few decisions represent the unanimous opinion of the judges. The court’s judgment is final and without appeal.

The court’s decisions, numbering approximately 70 from 1946 to 2000, are binding on the parties and have been concerned with issues such as land and maritime boundaries, territorial sovereignty, diplomatic relations, the right of asylum, nationality, and economic rights. The ICJ is also empowered to give advisory opinions on legal questions at the request of other organs of the UN and its specialized agencies when authorized to do so by the General Assembly. Although advisory opinions—numbering about 25 over its first 50 years—are not binding and are only consultative, they are considered important. They have been concerned with issues such as admission to the UN, the expenses of UN operations, and the territorial status of South West Africa (Namibia) and Western Sahara. The court may also be granted jurisdiction over certain cases by treaty or convention. By the late 1990s approximately 400 bilateral and multilateral treaties deposited at the UN conferred compulsory jurisdiction to the ICJ.

The court itself has no powers of enforcement, but according to article 94 of the Charter of the United Nations:

If any party to a case fails to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgment rendered by the Court, the other party may have recourse to the Security Council, which may, if it deems necessary, make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment.

Few state parties to a case before the ICJ (or before its predecessor, the PCIJ) have failed to carry out the court’s decisions. Two exceptions are Albania, which failed to pay £843,947 in damages to the United Kingdom in the Corfu Channel case (1949), and the United States, which refused to pay reparations to the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (1986). The United States also withdrew its declaration of compulsory jurisdiction and blocked Nicaragua’s appeal to the UN Security Council. In general, however, enforcement is made possible because the court’s decisions, though few in number, are viewed as legitimate by the international community.


In its role as an advisory body, the court has given some

important opinions with regard to the costs of peacekeeping, which

could be reckoned as normal expenses. It also gave opinions concerning

admissions into the UN. Because of the ICJ's limited powers, its

strict need to adhere to its charter and its impotence of action

unless approached we must consider its ability to resolve cases

brought before it successfully, its failures to do so when approached

and its shortcomings, in accessing its effectiveness, keeping in mind

its role in maintaining World peace.


Since its founding in 1946, the ICJ has dealt with 41

contentious cases between states and has also delivered 21 advisory

opinions. It has a mixed record of successes and failures, with a

surprisingly high degree of compliance with the verdict of the ICJ.

(Only two cases involving the Corfu Channel Case and the US-Nicaragua

case did the countries refuse to comply with the ICJ judgment.) One

reason for this compliance is the use of the ICJ on a voluntary basis.

Hence States would not seek the ICJ's verdict without having first

accepted the court's verdict in advance, be it in their favour of not,

as a matter of obligation.


An example of a successful case where the ICJ is effective is

in territorial waters and fishing rights in the "Fisheries" case

(1951). In it, the ICJ verdict in favour of Norway settled a

long-standing Dispute between the United States and Norway involving

British fishing vessels operating inside Norwegian claimed waters.

Another success of the ICJ was the "North Sea Continental Shelf"

cases (1969) involving Denmark, the Netherlands, and West Germany.

This successful settlement was crucial to the drilling of oil and gas

in the North Sea later. A further example is the "Fisheries

Jurisdiction" case between the UK and Iceland (1974). In this case,

the ICJ contributed to the development of the Law of the Sea in that

it advocated the Conservation of the 'living resources of the sea".


It was also effective in the territorial cases, which included

the small group of uninhabited islands in the channel islands

(Minquier and Ecrehou islands), disputed by UK and France. One

longstanding dispute between Nicaragua and Honduras since 1906,

concerning villages on their border and a dispute over the sovereignty

Preah Vihear temple by Cambodia and Thailand which was found to be in

Cambodian territory. More recently, the ICJ resolved a border clash

between Burkina Faso and Mali in the 1986 "Frontier Dispute" Case. It

also ruled on two pieces of land disputed by Belgium and Holland which

was found to be Belgium's.


However, the ICJ is noted for its failure to successfully

resolve inter-state disputes. To date, there are more than 30

unresolved frontier cases concerning the land of greater value, which have

never been submitted to the ICJ, because one party's claim is not on

legal grounds. In some cases, like the above, one or more of the

involved parties refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the court, thus

resulting in the court being ineffective. For example, the aircraft

incidents between the US and USSR in respect of aircraft shot down off

Japan and one forced down in Hungry, here both parties refused ICJ

jurisdiction. In 1955 Israel, US and the UK brought a case against

Bulgaria for the shooting down of an Israeli civilian aircraft over

its territory. Bulgaria rejected ICJ jurisdiction. The Courts hands

were tied.


Another example of the ICJ's ineffectiveness was in 1960 when

Ethiopia and Liberia brought a case to the ICJ claiming that South

Africa had violated the human rights of the natives of Namibia, which

had been a mandate under the League of Nations and which it ruled.

After a long and tedious process, the ICJ proclaimed that the case of

Ethiopia and Liberia were illegal, and thus, the case was dismissed on

a "procedural point".


Another instance of the ICJ's limitations in its effectiveness

was its 1979 verdict that ordered the release of US diplomats held

Hostage in Teheran, and payment of reparations. In this case Iran

contested and duly ignored the ICJ's jurisdiction. In 1984 Nicaragua

complained that the US had helped the Nicaraguan Contra rebels against

the Sandinista government. Two years later, the ICJ ruled in favour of

Nicaragua's claims, but in 1985, a year before, the US had already

withdrawn its acceptance of the ICJ's jurisdiction. All these examples

reflect the limitations of the ICJ in helping to settle interstate

disputes.


Also, some cases may take several years to be heard. the Court

may require certain provisional measures before a final judgment.

Hence it is very time-consuming to go through the ICJ.


However, the blame for the limited effectiveness of the ICJ


cannot be laid on the court itself. The ICJ's neutrality has been

maintained as far as possible, no two ICJ judges may be of the same

nationality, but prejudices are impossible to eliminate totally due to

human bias. In addition, major issues of peace and security between

the more powerful states are rarely submitted as most governments tend

to "consider the recognition of the jurisdiction of the court as

infringing on their sovereignty". Indeed the average yearly number of

decisions has not been more than two. Furthermore, there are no real

means of enforcing the ICJ's verdict. The ICJ has also been criticized

as time-consuming with little usefulness. However, it cannot be wholly

blamed as parties involved in claims often request more time to

prepare their cases. Since its use is totally voluntary, it cannot be

expected to resolve cases not brought to court and thus cannot be

responsible for legal skirmishes not brought to its doorstep.


Despite its shortcomings and the many failures it has

experienced, the ICJ has had a positive effect on the development of

International Law and the propagation of the principals of

sovereignty, non-conquest, human rights, and the rights of existence

and self-defense of a state. In addition, the ICJ has helped resolve

disputes between states with some degree of success, and given the

numerous difficulties it faces, its achievements are respectable and

its usefulness is undeniable. Most importantly, the ICJ, at the very

least provides an additional option for states to settle their

disputes peacefully through third-party intervention, and this has

reduced the threat of open war.