The Role of the ICJ Essay Example

The Role of the ICJ Essay Example The Role of the ICJ Essay The Role of the ICJ Essay The International Court of Justice (also known as the World Court or ICJ) is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. Its main functions are to settle legal disputes submitted to it by member states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions submitted to it by duly authorized international organs, agencies and the UN General Assembly. The ICJ acquires its authority thorough the Article 92, which is part of the UN Charter. This states in accordance with the annexed Statute, which is based upon the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and forms an integral part of the present Charter. Article 92 UN Charter) This enables the ICJ to function at a level of acceptance and allows equality and justice to flow freely. Although the central court is in Hague (Holland), councils can be held elsewhere, whenever it is deemed acceptable. The ICJ holds the ability to pass judgment on disputes between states and attempt to ratify them. It is open to all states that are in accord with the statute and all those who are in agreement of the conditions that are laid down. Due to the ICJ having nominal enforcement powers, Article 94 of the Charter states that each party of the UN must comply with the decision of the ourt in any case to which it is a party. There are also further provision which include: If any party to a case fails to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgement rendered by the court, the other party may have recourse to the Security Council, which may, if it deem necessary, make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment. (Article 94 UN Charter). The court is then authorized by other documents Article 65 of the Statute which addresses any legal queries that may be made in accordance with the UN Charter in regards to making a legal request. Another document Article 96 of the Charter provides that opinions may be requested by the General or other members of the UN such as specialized agencies. Because of the ICJs limited powers it holds more of an advisory role. This then causes a stringent need to follow the charter and keep actions short in order to resolve a larger amount of cases before they failure to do so. This would then result in shortcomings and thus create turmoil in regards to its effectiveness in maintaining its goal of World peace. The ICJ was founded in 1946 and since then they have dealt with 41 controversial cases between various states delivering 21 advisory opinions. It has many failures and successes, with an astonishingly high degree of compliance in regards to the verdict that the ICJ makes. There are only two known cases where the states did not comply with the ICJs judgment. These cases were the Corfu Channel Case and the US-Nicaragua. One possible reason for this was the fact that the ICJs compliance is on voluntary basis and therefore States can not seek the ICJs verdict without first accepting the courts verdict beforehand. One example of a successful case was the intervention of the ICJ on the fishing rights in the Fisheries case (1951). The ICJ settled a verdict in favor of Norway as the dispute between them and the United States as there were British fishing vessels within Norwegian waters. Another successful ICJ case was the North Sea Continental Shelf cases (1969). This case involved Denmark, Netherlands and West Germany. This was a successful settlement and was crucial as it open up the facility of oil and gas in the North Sea. More recently the ICJ resolved a boarder clash between Burkina Faso and Mali. (1986). This Frontier Dispute case was ruled in Belgiums favor as the two separate pieces of land that were disturbed by Belgium and Holland where in fact part of Belgium. On the other hand the ICJ is renowned for its failures as well as its successes. These include the inability to resolve inner-state disputes and to date more than 40 unresolved cases have been submitted to the ICJ. Some of the cases have involved parties fulfilling illegal duties and have not accepted the jurisdiction of the court. An example of this is in Israel, Us and the UK (1955) as they all bought down and Israeli civilian aircraft over their territory. Bulgaria rejected ICJ jurisdiction and therefore the ICJ had to let the case go as too much time was already wasted. Another example of the ineffectiveness of the ICJ was in 1960 where Ethiopia and Liberia brought forward a case claiming that South Africa was violating the human rights of the natives that resided in Namibia. After a long period of time and through a tedious process the ICJ finally gave their verdict. They were in favor of the case and ruled it as illegal and thus claimed procedural point. Another limit in effectiveness was the case of the Ruling on the Israeli Security Barrier (Wall) (July 9, 2004). This barrier caused a separation between the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the areas inside Israel. The ICJ failed to take down the wall as they felt that it was not violating the principals of international law and as a result the Israeli High Court stated against the ICJ and ruled that specific portions of the barrier had to be moved in order to spare Palestinian Arab residents inordinate suffering. (Israeli High Court). All the above ineffectiveness reflects the initiations of the ICJ in regards to the settlement of various disputes. The actual limited effectiveness cannot be placed upon the court itself as the ICJs objective position has enabled to be as fair as possible. For example: No two ICJ judges may be of the same nationality, but due to human prejudices not all discriminative happenings can be eradicated. In addition another major issue is the fact that more powerful states and their issues with security and peace have rarely been addressed as they are rarely submitted. This is because most governments tend to consider the recognition of the jurisdiction of the court as infringing on their sovereignty. Furthermore the ICJ has often been criticized by the extensive time consumption with nominal results as it may take several years for a case to be heard and acted upon or even reach a final judgment. Hence it is very time consuming to go through the ICJ and often considered a waste of resources and lack of efficiency. Although it cannot be wholly blamed as varied parties involved in the claims often request more time for preparation of their cases. Since it is usually voluntary it really cannot be expected to resolve all cases and definitely not be held accountable for legal actions that follow after it has been settled. Despite the fact that the ICJ has had many failures and successes it still remains a positive diplomat for international law and also a dissemination of the principals of sovereignty, non-conquest, human rights and the rights of existence, self-defense in regards to the state. In addition the ICJ has helped determine certain disputes and difficulties experienced by various states. Most importantly the ICJ provides an alternative for states to reconcile disputes through the use of third party intervention and thus results in more equality as strive for world peace.