International Court of Justice

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ), sometimes known as the "World Court." The principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN) since 1946, its statute is a multilateral agreement annexed to the charter of the United Nations.

The court serves as a principal vehicle for furthering the UN's mandate to facilitate the peaceful resolution of international disputes, acting as a permanent, neutral, third-party dispute settlement mechanism rendering binding judgments in "contentious" cases initiated by one state against another. Parties to dispute before the court must consent to the exercise of the court's jurisdiction. This may be demonstrated in one of three ways: (1) by special agreement or compris, in the context of a particular case; (2) by treaty, such as a multilateral agreement that specifies reference of disputes arising under it to the court; or (3) by advance consent to the so-called "compulsory" jurisdiction court on terms specified by the state concerned. The court also has the power to render advisory opinions at the request of international institutions such as the UN General Assembly.

Located in The Hague, the ICJ is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice, an organ of the League of Nations, which itself was the culmination of earlier international movements to promote international arbitration as an alternative to armed conflict. After World War II, the United States became party to the statute and accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the court on terms specified by the Senate, including the famous Connally amendment, in which the United States declined to give its consent to "disputes with regard to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States of America, as determined by the United States of America." Over the subsequent decade and a half the United States unsuccessfully initiated a series of cases against the USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria concerning aerial incidents in Europe. The court as a whole had relatively few cases on its docket during the 1960s, but the United States successfully appealed to the ICJ to vindicate its position as a matter of legal right during the Iranian hostage crisis.

A case initiated by Nicaragua in 1984 challenging U.S. support of the Contra militias and the mining of Nicaraguan ports proved to be a watershed in U.S. dealings with the court. After vigorously and unsuccessfully contesting the court's jurisdiction in a preliminary phase, the United States declined to appear on the merits and subsequently withdrew its consent to the compulsory jurisdiction of the court in 1985.However, the United States continues to be party to cases relying on other jurisdictional grounds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosenne, Shabtai. The Law and Practice of the International Court, 1920–1996. The Hague and Boston: Nijhoff, 1997.

Eyffinger, Arthur. The International Court of Justice 1946–1996. The Hague and Boston: Kluwer Law International, 1996.

Pomerance, Michla. The United States and the World Court as a "Supreme Court of the Nations": Dreams, Illusions, and Disillusion. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1996.

David A. Wirth

See also League of Nations ; United Nations .