About ICJ:

• It was established under UN Charter 1945 (which also established UNSC) to act as a principal judicial organ of the UN. It acts as a Civil court.
• As it is the UN principal judicial organ it is called as “world court”.

Headquarters: Hague, The Netherland (Only principal UN organ not located in New York)

Cases that ICJ Handles

• ICJ Settles legal disputes between Nations only. ICJ settles disputes on issues of Sovereignty, trade, treaty violations, and interpretations, etc.
• The Court has no jurisdiction to deal with applications from individuals, non-governmental organizations, corporations,or any other private entity. It cannot provide them with legal advice or help them in their dealings with national authorities.
• The Court can only hear a dispute in the case of a request by one or more States. It cannot deal with a dispute on its own initiative. It is also not permitted to investigate and rule on acts of sovereign States.

Member Countries: Members of UN automatically becomes the member of ICJ.

Composition: 15 members elected for 9 years. Of the 15 judges, the composition is mandated to be as follows –

• 3 from Africa
• 2 from Latin America and the Caribbean
• 3 from Asia
• 5 from Western Europe and other states
• 2 from Eastern Europe

Qualification and conditions for appointments

• To get elected candidate has to get absolute majority in UNGA and UNSC
• 5 Judges are elected for 3 years once
• No two Judges can be of the same nationality
• Members can be re-elected
• The President and Vice-President are elected by secret ballot to hold office for 3 years.
• The P5 members of the UNSC always have a judge on the Court. The exception was China, which did not have a judge on the Court from 1967 to 1985 because it did not put forward a candidate. More recently Britain too lost an election to India thereby failing to get even a single judge in ICJ in 2017.

India is a member of the UN so it is also a member of ICJ. Indian Judge Dalveer Bhandari was re-elected in 2018.

Rulings: 

• Once the country accepts UN intervention then the judgment is binding.
• Judgments given in contentious cases between states are also binding in nature
• Court also gives advisory opinions to the Council, the General Assembly and other authorized bodies on legal questions referred to it by these entities.
• Judgments are final and without appeal. The only possibility is filing an application for any Issue related to the scope and interpretation of the judgment before the Court for interpretation.

Source: important United Nations Organisations