Analysis of the Weaknesses of The International Court of Justice

 In this paper, I will discuss why the World Court or The International Court of Justice is often seen as being weak because it has little compulsory jurisdiction due to the optional clause, an unclear judiciary hierarchy, and how the US helped exempt itself in many cases. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is the judicial branch of the United Nations. The court's role is to settle legal disputes submitted to the court by states, who feel their rights have been violated by other states, the court then gives its opinion on the matter and decides which if the other state violated the terms.

The International Court of Justice is often seen as being weak because it has little compulsory jurisdiction. In order for a legal system to be functional, it must value compulsory jurisdiction. Compulsory Jurisdiction is when legal bodies can guarantee parties will appear before them and will be bound by the final decisions, according to Car, domestic legal systems work because “the jurisdiction of national courts is compulsory. Any person cited before a court must enter an appearance or lose his case by default, and the decision of the court is binding on all concerned”. However, in the international court, any state can bring a case before the court if that state feels its rights have been violated by another state under the international laws. The downside of this is that states do not have to attend the trial or respect the verdict of the court. The treaty creating the World Court, The Statute of the International Court of Justice consists of an optional clause that gives the states a choice; the states can agree or disagree in advance whether they will be obligated to follow the decisions of the court’s ruling. Under Article 36 of the Statute, it states that the states belonging to the Court, “at any time declare that they recognize as compulsory ipso facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other State accepting the same obligation, the jurisdiction of the Court”. The amount of states that have signed and accepted the optional clause is less than one-third out of all states involved in the court. Under the clause states that do sign have the option to specify their conditions, such as the state will not recognize the court’s ruling.

Along with having a weak compulsory jurisdiction, the World Court has an unclear judicial hierarchy. In order to have a working legal system, there needs to be a clear understanding of the judicial hierarchy, the judicial hierarchy in the chain of command that clearly shows the decisions made by the higher courts and their authority compared to lower-level courts. When relating the World Court’s hierarchy to the United States judicial hierarchy, there is no comparison. The United States has three main levels to its court system, the district court which is where trials occur, the circuit court which is where lower courts appeal to, and lastly the Supreme Court is the final court with the highest authority where appeals are decided. The International Court of Justice does not have any form of hierarchy, the lack of hierarchy becomes more obvious as countries disregard the rulings of the court and either veto the decision and continues what the actions the states were conducted prior to the hearing.

The United States took advantage of the nonexistent judicial hierarchy to exempt itself in many cases. For example, during the 1980s under the Ronald Regan administration, the United States provided money and weapons to rebels, as well as mining harbors within the country’s territories in Nicaragua. Nicaragua later reported to the International Court of Justice to determine if the U.S. was violating the international laws, in response the United States challenged the court to not take up the case, the World Court took up the case and ordered the U.S. to stop its actions in the waters, as it was a violation. The U.S. decided to pull out of the country altogether and disregarded the ruling and later used its power as a permanent member to veto the action of setting sanctions on the United States. Another issue of the United States disregarding the international law was during the 1990s when Jose Medellin, who was from Mexico was arrested in Texas on charges for murdering and gang-raping two girls, the problem was Medellin wasn’t allowed to contact the Mexican consulate, by 2008 he was executed without ever getting his right granted to him.

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is the judicial branch of the United Nations. The International Court of Justice is often seen as being weak because it has little compulsory jurisdiction. In the international court, any state can bring a case before the court if that state feels its rights have been violated by another state under the international laws. For a legal system to be functional, the system must abide by compulsory jurisdiction. World Court has an unclear judicial hierarchy. In order to have a working legal system, there needs to be a clear understanding of the judicial hierarchy, the judicial hierarchy in the chain of command that clearly shows the decisions made by the higher courts and their authority compared to lower-level courts. The United States took advantage of the nonexistent judicial hierarchy to exempt itself in many cases, the examples I used was during the Regan administration and the providing of weapons and money to extremist as well as mining in the country’s territorial waters. The second example was the arrest and execution of Jose Medellin. In my opinion, the International Court of Justice can work if it can make states abide by their rulings and attend the hearings, also having a state that is a permeant member veto on its own hearing should not be allowed, as nonpermanent members cannot veto on their hearings.