What is the structure and functions of International Court of Justice? (2023, 10 Marks)
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the “World Court”, serves as the UN’s principal judicial organ (Article 92 of the Charter). Successor to the League’s Permanent Court of International Justice, it has sat at the Peace Palace, The Hague, since April 1946. Its Statute is annexed to the Charter, so all 193 members are automatically parties.
Structure
- Bench: 15 judges, no two of one nationality, serving nine-year terms; a third of the seats fall vacant every three years, giving continuity.
- Election: the General Assembly and Security Council vote separately, and a candidate needs an absolute majority in both. Under Article 10(2) the veto does not apply, which let India’s Dalveer Bhandari defeat the British candidate in 2017; Russia lost its seat in 2023. India fielded no candidate for the 2026 election, so its fourteen-year presence ends in February 2027.
- Nomination and qualifications: candidates come from the national groups of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, not governments; judges must be qualified for the highest judicial office or be recognised jurists, and Article 9 requires the bench as a whole to represent the world’s principal legal systems.
- Officers and organs: a President and Vice-President elected for three years (currently President Iwasawa Yuji of Japan), a Registry as the permanent administration, possible chambers, and judges ad hoc for a party with no national on the bench.
Functions
- Contentious jurisdiction: only states may be parties (Article 34). Jurisdiction rests on consent, given by special agreement, a treaty’s compromissory clause, an optional-clause declaration under Article 36(2), or later acceptance. Judgments are final and binding (Article 60), and under Article 94 a party may take non-compliance to the Security Council.
- Provisional measures (Article 41): binding emergency orders since LaGrand (2001), as in The Gambia v. Myanmar (2020) on the Rohingya.
- Advisory jurisdiction (Article 96): non-binding but authoritative opinions for the Assembly, the Council and authorised agencies, from Reparation for Injuries (1949) to the unanimous climate change opinion (July 2025) and the ILO right-to-strike opinion (May 2026).
- Development of law: by applying the sources in Article 38, it turns diffuse state practice into statable rules, as Nicaragua (1986) did for non-intervention.
Conclusion
The structure reflects Hersch Lauterpacht’s claim in The Function of Law in the International Community (1933) that every inter-state dispute is justiciable, but the function stays hostage to sovereign consent and a veto-bound enforcement clause. The Court therefore works best as a forum states choose, not one that can summon them: authoritative in declaring the law, dependent on politics for its enforcement.