The ICJ consists of fifteen judges elected by the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council for a nine-year term from a list of persons appointed by the national groups to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The electoral procedure is defined in Articles 4 to 19 of the ICJ Statute. Elections are staggered with five judges elected every three years to ensure continuity within the Court. In the event of the death of a judge, the practice was generally to elect a judge at a special election to terminate his or her term. The judges of the International Court of Justice are entitled to His Excellency`s title. The sources of law to be applied by the Court are: existing international treaties and conventions; international custom; general principles of law; judicial decisions; and the teachings of the most qualified publicists. Moreover, if the parties so agree, the Court may rule ex aequo et bono on a case, i.e. without limiting itself to the existing rules of international law. One of the most famous cases decided by the ICJ is Nicaragua v. United States of America. In 1986, the ICJ ruled that the United States had violated international law by supporting right-wing rebel groups in its covert war efforts against the Nicaraguan government.

However, the United States refused to comply with the Court`s decision ordering the United States to pay war reparations and withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction. Nicaragua appealed to the Security Council to implement the decision, but the United States, a permanent member of the Council, vetoed the implementation measures. There is also criticism of the bias within the ICJ linked to the absence of a real separation of powers between the Security Council and the ICJ. Moreover, only states can bring a case before the ICJ, and while a state can choose to take on a person`s case, it can also choose not to do so. For example, ethnic minorities have no luck without state support. Although the ICJ is imperfect, its decisions carry considerable weight in the international community and have the power to bring about real change. The International Court of Justice (ICJ; French: International Court of Justice; ICJ), sometimes known as the World Court,[1] is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). [2] It decides on disputes between States in accordance with international law and advises on questions of international law. The ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between countries, with its judgments and advisory opinions serving as primary sources of international law. There is an informal agreement that seats will be distributed by geographical region, so there are five seats for Western countries, three for African states (including one judge for French-speaking civil law, one for English-speaking customary law and one for Arab states), two for Eastern European states, three for Asian States and two for Latin American and Caribbean States.

[13] For most of the Court`s history, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (France, USSR, China, United Kingdom and United States) have always had a sitting judge, leaving three of the Western seats, one of the Asian seats and one of the Eastern European seats. The exceptions were China, which had no judge on the court from 1967 to 1985, did not field a candidate during that period, and British judge Sir Christopher Greenwood, who retired in 2017 as a candidate for a second nine-year term on the bench, leaving no British judge on the court. [14] Greenwood had been supported by the UN Security Council, but could not secure a majority in the UN General Assembly. [14] Indian Justice Dalveer Bhandari took the seat instead. [14] Once a case has been filed, any party (usually the applicant) may seek a court order to protect the status quo until the matter is heard. These injunctions are known as interim measures (or interim) and correspond to injunctions under U.S. law. Section 41 of the Act authorizes the court to make such orders. The court must be satisfied that it has prima facie jurisdiction to hear the merits of the case before adopting interim measures. The International Court of Justice, also known as the ICJ and the World Court, is the highest court in the world. Its task is to provide advisory opinions on questions of international law and to settle disputes between States.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, consists of fifteen judges and has its seat in The Hague in the Netherlands. The Tribunal`s workload covers a wide range of adjudicative activities. After the Court ruled that the secret war of the United States against Nicaragua violated international law (Nicaragua v. United States), the United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 and accepted the Court`s jurisdiction only at its discretion. [11] Chapter XIV of the Charter of the United Nations empowers the UN Security Council to execute the Court`s judgments. However, this application is subject to the veto of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States exercised in the case of Nicaragua. [12] The ad hoc chambers are convened more frequently. For example, chambers were used to hear the Gulf of Maine case (Canada/United States). [18] In this case, the parties have made it clear that they will withdraw the case unless the court appoints judges for the chamber acceptable to the parties.

Chambers` judgments may either have less authority than the Court`s full judgments or undermine the correct interpretation of universal international law, which is shaped by a variety of cultural and legal perspectives.