Route 1 1945, principal judicial organ → only forum where one state can sue another → writ bounded at both ends: consent at entry, veto at exit

Route 2 judicial settlement as the alternative to force → but the Court decides only what states allow, and enforces nothing itself

inside consent, the record is solid: impartial hearing (Jadhav) → territorial disputes settled (El Salvador–Honduras; Cameroon–Nigeria) → law-building (territorial waters, continental shelf) → then the structural limits: consent, not compulsion → judgment final and binding, but enforcement through the UNSC, veto available even to a state that consented → open non-compliance (US, Israel) + Global South charge of Western tilt → Prabhash Ranjan: Russia’s veto shield, yet indifference does not lessen the law’s importance → docket still filling (Myanmar merits, Jan 2026; Guyana–Venezuela, May 2026) → McIntyre & Simpson: standing widened under the Genocide Convention

“UN’s least effective body,” enforcement gap real → against this: the most far-reaching attempt at rule of law between states; at eighty, still the archetype of international adjudication

Route 1 the Court fixes the legal terms on which states contest; it does not police power

Route 2 authority real but conditional — the binding constraint is the veto, not the bench