PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · The United Nations
Evaluate the role of the International Court of Justice in inter-State disputes.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R! 1945, principal judicial organ → only forum where one state can sue another → writ bounded at both ends: consent at entry, veto at exit R2 | judicial settlement as the alternative to force → but the Court decides only what states allow, and enforces nothing itself
Body flow
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
Counter-view
"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
Conclusion routes
Rk! the Court fixes the legal terms on which states contest; it does not police power R2) authority real but conditional — the binding constraint is the veto, not the bench
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
