The Authority of the International Court of Justice

Abstract

Recently some lawyers and statesmen have begun to cite judgments of the International Court of Justice as if they were decisive evidence of the content of international law. This trend, if it continues, will tend to diminish the influence of international law on the actions of states and others, by arrogating the authoritative determination of the content of international law to a tribunal that was never intended to generate rules of universal application, is ill-equipped to do so, and ought not usually to be viewed as having done so, except in very exceptional circumstances.