Role of the International Court of Justice - Essay Example

contentious procedure1. This court is also responsible for giving advisory opinion regarding legal issue brought forth before the court by authorized UN and specialized agencies, i.e. the advisory procedure. This court has a number of 15 judges, and they are elected by the UN’s General Assembly. These judges normally serve for a term of 9 years, and the court is situated in Hague, the Netherlands2. This paper describes the function of this court, and it gives specific examples for purposes of demonstrating a particular role.

This court is responsible for settling contentious cases, between states that agree to submit a case before it. Under this function, only member states of the United Nations can bring a case before the court, and after the ruling, the states under consideration must agree to follow and implement the ruling under consideration. It is important to understand that corporate organizations, Federal States, organs of the United Nations, and Non-Governmental Organizations cannot participate directly in the cases brought forth in the court3.

However, the court allows these institutions to provide any information that would support and help the court to come up with a decisive and good conclusion regarding the case under consideration. It is important to understand that in as much as non state actors cannot participate in the proceedings of the court, a state can bring in a case in the court, for the main purpose of protecting the interests of its citizens or its own corporation. An example is the case that the United States brought before the court in 1980, in protest to the detention of American diplomats in Iran4.

In this case, the judges of the ICJ ruled that Iran had violated the principles that guide diplomatic relations, and on this basis, the country should take responsibility for its actions. The court further went on to rule that