International Court Of Justice
Introduction
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; French: Cour Internationale de justice; CIJ) is one of the United Nations’ six main organizations. It is often known as the World Court (UN). It handles international legal disputes between governments and provides advisory views on international legal matters. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the only international court that hears general disputes between nations, and its decisions and views are considered key sources of international law. The ICJ is the successor to the League of Nations’ Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was created in 1920.
Following WWII, the League and the PCIJ were superseded by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, respectively. The ICJ’s statute, which establishes its mission and organization, is substantially influenced by those of its predecessor, whose judgments are still binding.
The ICJ Statute applies to all UN member states and allows them to bring matters to the court; however, advisory procedures can only be brought by specified UN authorities and agencies. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is made up of a panel of 15 justices who are appointed by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year mandates. At any given moment, no more than one judge from any country may be present on the court, and judges must collectively represent the world’s major civilizations and legal systems. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the only major UN entity not based in New York City. It is housed in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. English and French are the official working languages. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has heard 179 cases since its inception on May 22, 1947, and will continue to do so until March 2021.
History
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), founded at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899, was the first permanent institution formed for the purpose of resolving international conflicts. The meeting, convened by Russian Czar Nicholas II, brought together all of the world’s main powers, as well as a number of minor governments, and produced the first multilateral treaties on the conduct of combat. The Convention for the Settlement of International Disputes in the Pacific, for example, established the institutional and procedural foundation for arbitral procedures to be held in The Hague, Netherlands.
Although the proceedings would be supported by a permanent bureau with tasks akin to a secretariat or court registry, the arbitrators would be chosen by the contesting governments from a broader pool offered by each convention member. The PCA was founded in 1900 and started hearings in 1902. The agreement was updated and the procedures regulating arbitral proceedings before the PCA were reinforced during a second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, which included the majority of the world’s sovereign governments. During the summit, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany presented a combined proposal for a permanent court with full-time justices.
Because the delegates couldn’t agree on how the judges would be chosen, the issue was put on hold until a later convention could reach an accord. The Hague Peace Conferences and the concepts that developed from them prompted the establishment of the Central American Court of Justice, one of the first regional judicial organizations, in 1908. Between 1911 and 1919, several ideas and suggestions for the construction of a worldwide judicial tribunal were proposed, but none of them were realized in the formation of a new international order following the First World War.
The Permanent Court Of International Justice
The enormous carnage of the First World War prompted the establishment of the League of Nations, which was created by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as the first global intergovernmental organization dedicated to upholding peace and collective security. Article 14 of the League of Nations Covenant called for the creation of a Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which would be in charge of adjudicating any international dispute brought before it by the contesting parties, as well as providing an advisory opinion on any dispute or question brought before it by the League of Nations. Following multiple draughts and discussions, the League’s Assembly overwhelmingly accepted the PCIJ’s Statute in December 1920, which was signed and ratified by a majority of members the following year.
The new Statute, among other things, settled the difficult problem of appointing judges by requiring that judges be chosen concurrently but separately by the League’s Council and Assembly. The PCIJ’s composition would represent the world’s “major types of civilization and fundamental legal systems.” [7] The PCIJ would be permanently housed alongside the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague’s Peace Palace.
In various aspects, the PCIJ was a watershed moment in international jurisprudence:
- It was a permanent body controlled by its own statute provisions and rules of procedure, unlike earlier international arbitral tribunals.
- It maintained a permanent record that acted as a point of contact for governments and international organizations.
- Its procedures, including filings, oral arguments, and all documented evidence, were largely open to the public.
- It was open to all states and may be proclaimed obligatory jurisdiction over disputes by states.
- The PCIJ Statute was the first to declare the sources of law it would use, which later became international law sources.
- Judges represented the world and its legal systems better than any other international judicial organization before them.
The PCIJ, as a permanent organization, would issue a succession of decisions and judgments over time that would help to establish international law. The PCIJ, unlike the ICJ, was not a member of the League, and members of the League were not automatically parties to its Statute. Although numerous of its citizens served as judges on the Court, the United States, which played a crucial role in both the second Hague Peace Conference and the Paris Peace Conference, was not a member of the League. The PCIJ dealt with 29 interstate disputes and delivered 27 advisory opinions from its inaugural session in 1922 until 1940.
Several hundred international treaties and agreements gave the Court jurisdiction over certain types of disputes, demonstrating the Court’s widespread acceptability. In addition to assisting in the resolution of numerous major international conflicts, the PCIJ also assisted in the clarification of various ambiguities in international law that aided in its evolution. The United States was a key contributor to the creation of the World Court, although it never joined. Although Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt all backed admission, a treaty requiring a 2/3 majority in the Senate was difficult to achieve.
Establishment Of The International Court Of Justice
- Following a height of activity in 1933, the PCIJ’s activities began to dwindle due to the era’s rising international tensions and isolationism. The Court, which conducted its final public session in December 1939 and issued its final orders in February 1940, was virtually abolished by the Second World War. The United States and the United Kingdom simultaneously expressed their support for creating or re-forming an international court after the war in 1942, and the United Kingdom led an “Inter-Allied Committee” of jurists from throughout the world to explore the issue in 1943. In its 1944 report, it suggested that:
- Any future international court’s statute should be modeled on the PCIJ’s;
- The new court’s jurisdiction should be advisory only.
- Acceptance of the jurisdiction of the new court should be optional;
- The court should only deal with legal issues, not political ones.
Several months later, a conference of the major Allied Powers—China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—issued a joint declaration recognizing the need “to establish as soon as practicable a general international organization, based on the principle of sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
In October 1944, an Allied conference in Dumbarton Oaks, in the United States, released a proposal calling for the formation of an intergovernmental organization with an international court. In April 1945, a conference in Washington, D.C. was held with 44 jurists from throughout the world to prepare legislation for the proposed court. The proposed statute was quite similar to the PCIJ’s, and it was debated whether a new court should be established at all. It was resolved during the San Francisco Conference, which took place from April 25 to June 26, 1945, and was attended by 50 countries, that a completely new court should be founded as the primary organ of the nascent United Nations.
The statute of this court would be an intrinsic component of the United Nations Charter, which specifically stated that the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Statute was based on that of the PCIJ in order to preserve consistency. As a result, in October 1945, the PCIJ met for the final time and decided to transfer its archives to its successor, which would take its position at the Peace Palace. The judges of the PCIJ all resigned on January 31, 1946, and the initial members of the ICJ were elected the following February during the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council’s First Session.
The PCIJ was legally disbanded in April 1946, and the ICJ chose President José Gustavo Guerrero of El Salvador, who had served as the PCIJ’s final President, during its inaugural meeting. Later that month, the Court chose members of its Registry, which was mostly recruited from the PCIJ’s, and had its first public session. The United Kingdom filed the first complaint against Albania in May 1947, alleging occurrences in the Corfu Channel.
Activities
The UN Charter established the court in 1945, and it began operations in 1946 as the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The International Court of Justice’s Statute, like its predecessor’s, is the basic constitutional document that establishes and regulates the court. The court’s workload is diverse, encompassing a wide range of judicial functions. After the court declared in Nicaragua v. United States that the US’s covert war against Nicaragua was illegal under international law, the US withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986, accepting the court’s authority solely on a discretionary basis.
The UN Security Council has the authority to execute court judgments under Chapter XIV of the UN Charter. However, such enforcement is subject to the veto power of the council’s five permanent members, which the US employed in the instance of Nicaragua.
Composition
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is made up of fifteen judges chosen by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year mandates from a list of candidates nominated by country groupings in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Articles 4–19 of the ICJ Statute describe the election procedure. The court’s elections are staggered, with five judges being chosen every three years to preserve continuity. If a judge dies while in office, it is customary to hold a special election to fill the vacancy. The style of His/Her Excellency is reserved for judges of the International Court of Justice. No two judges from the same country are allowed to sit on the same bench.
The court’s membership is expected to reflect the “main types of civilization and the primary legal systems of the globe,” according to Article 9. Common law, civil law, and socialist law have all been used (now post-communist law). Five seats will be allocated to Western countries, three to African states (including one judge of francophone civil law, one of Anglophone common law, and one Arab), two to Eastern European states, three to Asian states, and two to Latin American and Caribbean states, according to an informal agreement.
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (France, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have always had a judge serving on the court, occupying three of the Western seats, one of the Asian seats, and one of the Eastern European seats for the majority of the court’s history. China did not have a judge on the court from 1967 to 1985 since it did not nominate a candidate, and British judge Sir Christopher Greenwood withdrew as a candidate for re-election to a second nine-year term on the bench in 2017, leaving the court without any British judges.
The UN Security Council had backed Greenwood, but he was unable to gain a majority in the UN General Assembly. Instead, Indian judge Dalveer Bhandari assumed the seat. All judges shall be “chosen independently of nationality among individuals of high moral character” who are either qualified for the highest judicial position in their native countries or known as attorneys with adequate competence in international law, according to Article 6 of the Statute. Articles 16–18 deal directly with judicial independence. Judges of the International Court of Justice are not permitted to hold other positions or serve as lawyers.
In reality, judges interpret these restrictions differently, allowing them to participate in outside arbitration and hold professional positions as long as there is no conflict of interest. Only a unanimous vote of the other members of the court may remove a judge. Despite these measures, the independence of the judges of the International Court of Justice has been questioned. For example, during the Nicaragua case, the US made a statement claiming that it would be unable to submit critical information to the court due to the presence of Soviet-era justices. Judges can make collaborative decisions or provide their own independent judgments.
Decisions and advisory opinions are made by a majority vote, with the President’s vote being decisive in the event of a tie vote, as in the case of the Legality of a State’s Use of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (Opinion Requested by WHO), [1996] ICJ Reports 66. Separate dissenting opinions may also be issued by judges.
Advisory Opinions
An advisory opinion is a court function that is exclusively available to specific UN authorities and agencies. The UN Charter empowers the General Assembly or the Security Council to obtain an advisory opinion from the court on any legal problem. Other UN institutions, other than the GA and SC, may not ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion unless the General Assembly allows it. Other UN organs only ask the court for an advisory opinion on subjects that come within the scope of their responsibilities. [39] When the court receives a request, it determines whether states and organizations might be able to contribute helpful information and allows them to make written or oral comments.
Advisory opinions were created to allow UN agencies to seek the court’s assistance in resolving complicated legal matters that may fall under their mandates. Although the court’s advisory opinions are solely advisory in nature, they are authoritative and well-respected. Certain agreements or rules may specify in advance that the advisory opinion would be binding on certain agencies or states, although they are intrinsically non-binding under the Court’s Statute.
Because the legal rationale included in advisory opinions represents the court’s authoritative views on significant questions of international law, its non-binding character does not entail that they have no legal significance. The court generally uses the same norms and processes that govern its binding judgments issued in disputed matters brought to it by sovereign nations in arriving at them. The fact that an advisory opinion is the official declaration of the United Nations’ major judicial agency confers significance and authority on it.
Advisory opinions have frequently been contentious, either because the issues addressed are contentious, or because the case was pursued as a deceptive means of putting a difficult subject before the court. The section advisory opinions in the List of International Court of Justice Cases article contains examples of advisory opinions. The Nuclear Weapons Case is one such well-known advisory opinion.
Top 13 Interesting Facts About ICJ
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; French: Cour Internationale de justice; CIJ) is one of the United Nations’ six main organizations.
The ICJ Statute applies to all UN member states and allows them to bring matters to the court; however, advisory procedures can only be brought by specified UN authorities and agencies.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is made up of a panel of 15 justices who are appointed by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year mandates.
At any given moment, no more than one judge from any country may be present on the court, and judges must collectively represent the world’s major civilizations and legal systems.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the only major UN entity not based in New York City.
The UN Security Council had backed Greenwood, but he was unable to gain a majority in the UN General Assembly.
Instead, Indian judge Dalveer Bhandari assumed the seat.
All judges shall be “chosen independently of nationality among individuals of high moral character” who are either qualified for the highest judicial position in their native countries or known as attorneys with adequate competence in international law, according to Article 6 of the Statute.
Articles 16–18 deal directly with judicial independence.
Judges of the International Court of Justice are not permitted to hold other positions or serve as lawyers.
The court generally uses the same norms and processes that govern its binding judgments issued in disputed matters brought to it by sovereign nations in arriving at them.
The fact that an advisory opinion is the official declaration of the United Nations’ major judicial agency confers significance and authority on it.
The court issues a majority opinion when deliberation is completed. Individual judges may offer concurring opinions (if they agree with the court’s decision but disagree with the reasons) or dissenting opinions (if they disagree with the court’s decision but disagree with the explanation) (if they disagree with the majority). There is no right of appeal, but any party may petition the court to explain the meaning or extent of the court’s decision if there is a disagreement.
Vidushi Rastogi
Writer
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