THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

 After World War I it was widely hoped that the rule of law might be made a substitute for war. All agreed under the League Covenant to settle ”disputes” by peaceful means. Three alternative methods were provided for this purpose. Those disputes that were regarded as purely political would be submitted to the League Council. For disputes that were partly legal, provision was made for their submission to arbitration, through one of the arbitral arrangements already established, or, later, to a procedure known as ”conciliation”, under less formal legal procedures. Finally, for disputes that were purely legal, a wholly new procedure was established, to be known as ”judicial settlement”. This would be undertaken by a new body established for the first time the Permanent International Court of Justice which was set up at The Hague.

Many doubted whether any clear distinction could be drawn between ”legal” and ”political” disputes. There were two oPPOSite views on this subject. Some fervent believers 111 international law mainly lawyers, held that there was no dispute, however ”political”, which could not be resolved according to the principles and procedures of international law. Politicians, on the other hand,

less firmly convinced, tended to maintain that for many issues the traditional methods of diplomacy or the newly established ' League of Nations could provide solutions. Others held tha were no that there were no purely legal questions at all. And it quickly came to be established that the most ”important” issues were political rather than legal, and so ”unfit for decision by the Court". 

In consequence, the Court was excluded from hearing those issues that were most likely to lead to war. Most of the disputes or cases which ultimately led to war, or at least its justification the treatment of Japanese citizens in Manchuria, the frontier dispute over Wal-Wal between Italy and Ethiopia, the demilitarisation of the Rhineland, the treatment of German minorities in Czechoslovakia and Polandwere never even considered as possible items for submission to the Permanent International Court of Justice. 

        But the general belief that law could be made a substitute for war led to further attempts to strengthen the legal machinery that had been established. It was proposed that nations should give a solemn undertaking that in all disputes of a legal character they would accept the jurisdiction of the Court if these were submitted to it by nations which had given a similar undertaking. Because of the opposition of some nations, especially Britain and one or two Commonwealth countries, this proposal was changed so that both the nations concerned needed to have given their prior consent to the Court’s “compulsory” jurisdiction. This was the famous Optional Clause to which governments might voluntarily accede. Even then many nations did not accede to it. Or they attached to their acceptance so many reservations, excluding all disputes of a particular kind, that much of its value was lost. 

Jurisdiction of the Permanent Court 

The Court gave its judgement on questions involving the interpretation of international law, treaties and other mutual obligations. However, it had jurisdiction only over such disputes as members were willing to submit to it. A few countries however agreed in advance to submit all their disputes to the Court for settlement. Others reserved the right to submit to the Court only those cases which they liked. The establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice was the most important effort made thus far to establish an international judicial tribunal for the adjudication of controversies between states. During its existence the Court tried 65 cases and handed down 32 judgements, 27 advisory Opinions and several hundred orders. Thus, it created a body of legal precedents of great utility for the solution of future international cases of justiciable character. 

After World War II, it was agreed to reconstitute the Court to make it an integral element of the United Nations system. In April 1945, even before the end of the war, a Committee of Jurists was invited by the US Government to meet in Washington and make recommendations for a new statute for the Court. At the San Francisco Conference, it was accepted that all members of the UN should automatically become parties to the statute of the new Court. It was renamed. The adjective ’permanent’ was dropped. The Court was made an organ of the UN (its predecessor had been separate from the League). Its statute became annexed to the Charter. 

The statute was redrafted. Every member of the UN had to undertake to comply with the decisions of the Court. The Optional Clause was reproduced in Article 36 of the statute; parties were able to declare that they recognised ”as compulsory ipso facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other state accepting the same obligation”, the Court’s jurisdiction over certain types of legal disputes. It was laid down in the Charter that the Security Council could, at the request of one party to a dispute, ”decide on measures to be taken to give effect to ”a judgement of the Court”.