International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal juridical organ of the United Nations. It is the only main UN organ located outside New York - its seat is at the Peace Palace in the Hague, the Netherlands.
Members of the ICJ
The Court can only deal with a dispute when the States concerned have recognized its jurisdiction. All members of the United Nations are automatically parties to the ICJ. A state that is not a UN member may, however, also join the Court on conditions determined by the General Assembly.
Functions of the ICJ
The Court has a twofold function:
- the settlement of disputes between states on the basis of international law.
- the delivery of advisory opinions on legal questions at the request of specifically authorized international organs.
It is to be noted that, according to its Statute, art.34(1), the International Court of Justice has jurisdiction only over disputes between states, not over individual guilt or innocence for violations of international codes of conduct.
Composition
The Court is composed of 15 permanent judges from different parts of the world. They are elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council for a term of nine years.
Every three years, five judges are elected. They hold their position in their personal capacity, although there have been geopolitical considerations. In fact, four of five of the permanent members of the Security Council have had a judge in the Court.
Programme of work
The Court usually holds plenary meetings, but it may from time to time form one or more chambers composed of three or more judges. A judgement given by any of the chambers shall be considered as rendered by the Court. The Court's decisions are binding on the parties.
More on the International Court of Justice
The website of the International Court of Justice contains information about the structure and composition of the Court with biographies of the Judges, news and background information, reports and documents.
- List of cases referred to the Court since 1946 by date of introduction.
- International Court of Justice: Basic Toolkit, a multimedia product that aims to familiarize the general public with the history, role and functioning of the Court by providing basic information and links to practical resource.
- UN Documentation: International Court of Justice, a research guide by the Dag Hammarskjöld library, New York.
Find ICJ documentation
Publications of the International Court of Justice are published in several series, certain of which are available in electronic version.
Annual reports
The International Court of Justice submits its annual report for consideration to the General Assembly. The report is a summary of actions and decisions by the Court during the year.
- The report of the International Court of Justice is issued as no 4 in the documentary series Supplements to the Official Records of the General Assembly.
- Annual Reports since 1985 are posted at the website of the International Court of Justice.
Decisions and judgements
The International Court of Justice issues Reports of the decisions and judgements of the Court in both English and French texts.
- Report of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders contains reports on the decisions of the International Court of Justice in both English and French texts. Each decision is published immediately in an unbound booklet, referred to as the I.C.J. Reports, with an indication of the year. In January of each year, an analytical index is published on the previous year's decisions.
- Summaries of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders of the International Court of Justice are published periodically, covering different time periods.
- Full text documents of all cases can be retrieved from the website of the International Court of Justice:
- ICJ Judgments, Orders, Advisory Opinions in the research guide by Dag Hammarskjöld library, New York.
Verbatim records
After the termination of each case documentation is issued containing the verbatim record or the oral proceedings, the written pleadings and any document submitted to the Court after the closure of the written proceedings.
- Volumes in this series are published as Pleadings, Oral Arguments, Documents.
- ICJ basic texts and publications. Research guide by the Dag Hammarskjöld library, New York.
Yearbook
The International Court of Justice produces a yearbook annually with an account of the work undertaken during the period from 1 August of the preceding year.
- A collection of the ICJ Yearbook in print is held by Dag Hammarskjöld and the Law Library at Uppsala University, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters.
- ICJ publications. Research guide by the Dag Hammarskjöld library, New York.
Bibliography
The International Court of Justice regularly issues a bibliography - Bibliographie de la Cour internationale de Justice - Bibliography of the International Court of Justice - listing essential documents from the previous year.
- ICJ publications. Research guide by the Dag Hammarskjöld library, New York.
Press releases
A short summary of the ongoing activities of the International Court of Justice is contained in its press releases. Press releases from the International Court of Justice carry the following document symbol: ICJ/.
Key UN documents
- UN Charter in Swedish | in English
- UN System Chart
- Yearbook of the United Nations
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
- Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
- Statue of the International Court of Justice
UN documents and publications in catalogues and databases
- United Nations Digital Library. UN official documents and open access publications, UN maps, UN voting data and speeches.
- UN iLibrary. UN publications online covering different topics.
- ODS (Official Document System) is an full-text database of UN documents published since 1993, including digitized documents published between 1946 and 1993.
- Daily list of documents. Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
- UNBIS Thesaurus is a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
- Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
- a list of all documents
- a comprehensive subject index
- an index to speeches
- a voting chart of resolutions
- United Nations Documents Index (in United Nations Digital Library). References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, Sweden and the UN Library in New York and the UN library in Geneva.