Selection of the International Court of Justice as a forum for contentious and advisory proceedings (including jurisdiction)

This article identifies trends relating to the selection of the Court as a forum for contentious and advisory proceedings. It compares the use of the Court with other judicial or arbitral mechanisms and identifies how the use of the Court is affected by newer adjudicatory mechanisms. The article considers developments with regard to the invocation of the Court’s jurisdiction under Article 36 of its Statute and examines the factors that might influence states in selecting mechanisms for adjudicating inter-State disputes. The article also examines the significant increase in the use of the Court’s incidental jurisdiction to indicate provisional measures. In this regard, it analyses the ‘plausibility of rights’ criterion, as well as the issues that are likely to arise as the Court seeks to balance competing considerations of preventing misuse of provisional measures and the need to preserve the integrity of the final judgment. Finally, the article considers the use (or lack thereof) of the advisory jurisdiction of the Court, categorizing the types of questions that have been put to the Court and explaining why requests relating to some categories of questions have declined