Evaluate the role of the International Court of Justice in inter-State disputes. (2019, 15 Marks)
The International Court of Justice exists to settle legal disputes between states by adjudication, the most law-like method in Article 33 of the Charter. Its role must be judged against a structural fact: in a system of sovereign equals it can hear a state only with that state’s consent, and it has no means of enforcing what it decides.
The case for its role
- Binding finality: judgments bind the parties and admit no appeal (Article 60 of the Statute); under Article 94 of the Charter members undertake to comply, and the winner may turn to the Security Council.
- Boundary and maritime settlement: where states submit by special agreement, compliance is almost total. Nigeria’s handover of Bakassi to Cameroon after the 2002 judgment shows a hard territorial loss accepted; studies put overall compliance at roughly 60 to 80 per cent, depending on the period.
- Clarifying law: litigation settles what treaties leave conflicting or silent. North Sea Continental Shelf (1969) on custom and Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros (1997) on treaty survival gave states rules to bargain with.
- Rising use: about 200 cases have entered the General List since 1947; two dozen are pending. The Gambia litigates a collective concern against Myanmar with eleven states intervening (merits heard January 2026, judgment awaited); Guyana v. Venezuela was argued in May 2026. India won Jadhav (2019) through a treaty’s compromissory clause.
The limits
- Consent and reservations: only 75 states accept the optional clause, and no permanent member except the UK. India’s own reservations defeated Pakistan in the Aerial Incident case (2000).
- Enforcement: the veto sits inside Article 94(2), which has never yielded a Council measure. After Nicaragua (1986) the United States vetoed enforcement and left the optional clause; Russia ignored the 2022 order to halt operations in Ukraine.
- Delay and avoidance: South Africa’s reply in its genocide case against Israel is not due until November 2027; the Marshall Islands cases (2016) died on a formal “no dispute” finding.
- Competition: states prefer forums they shape. Italy took Enrica Lexie to an UNCLOS Annex VII tribunal, whose 2020 award held the marines immune but awarded India compensation.
Theoretical assessment
Hans J. Morgenthau saw international law obeyed where interests coincide and bent where vital interests are at stake; the ICJ’s record broadly confirms him on war and security. Robert O. Keohane’s institutionalism and Thomas M. Franck’s idea of legitimacy’s “compliance pull” explain why routine judgments are obeyed: the Court lowers the cost of settlement and lets governments yield at home by citing a judgment. R. P. Anand (2001) traced Afro-Asian distrust to a Western-made law and the 1966 South West Africa casting vote, and saw confidence revive after Nicaragua showed the Court could rule against a superpower.
Conclusion
The ICJ is effective for disputes states are willing to settle and marginal for those that shape world politics. That is a real but bounded achievement: a body of law, a habit of peaceful settlement, and a relevance that grows less through coercion than through states choosing litigation as diplomacy.