International Courts Part III of III: Int'l Court of Justice

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Feb 22, 2000

As the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, International Court of Justice (http://www.icj-cij.org) is seated at the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. It was established to operate in 1946 to replace the Permanent Court of International Justice (which was formed in 1922). The legal ground of the ICJ is the Charter of the United Nations, which is included in the Statute of the International Court of Justice and found at http://www.un.org/Overview/Statute/conte... .

Its establishment is intended to perform trials in the events of international law disputes between states and to provide advisory opinions on legal issues referred by international organs and agencies within the United Nations. The fact that only states can be referred to the court limits the United Nations, states, individuals and agencies to perform trials on other disputes of nationwide and international levels.

The court itself is composed of 15 judges of different countries who are elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and Security Council. They are independent and do not represent their own governments in their duties as magistrates.

There are twenty-four pending cases at the International Court of Justice awaiting trials (Source: The International Court of Justice):

1. Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain)

2-3. Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United Kingdom) (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United States of America)

4. Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America)

5. Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia)

6. Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia)

7. Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria)

8. Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia/Malaysia)

9. Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of Congo)

10. LaGrand (Germany v. United States of America)

11-18. Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v. Belgium) (Yugoslavia v. Canada) (Yugoslavia v. France) (Yugoslavia v. Germany) (Yugoslavia v. Italy) (Yugoslavia v. Netherlands) (Yugoslavia v. Portugal) (Yugoslavia v. United Kingdom)

19-21. Armed activities on the territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Burundi) (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda) (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Rwanda)

22. Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Yugoslavia)

23. Aerial Incident of 10 August 1999 (Pakistan v. India)

24. Proceedings instituted by Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. Honduras)

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