The World Court on Trial

In spite of its glorious record and the respect which was attached to the name of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) in 1945,1 when a new international organization was formulated at the San Francisco conference, the Court was re-established under a new name, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), for political rather than juristic considerations.2 But in its “reincarnation”, the loose connection of the old World Court with the League of Nations was replaced by the integration of the new Court into the United Nations as its “principal judicial organ” and the Statute of the Court was made part of the United Nations Charter (Art. 92). Thus all members of the United Nations became ipso factoParties to the Statute of the Court (Art. 93). But though it was a new Court with a new name which came into existence in 1945, the chain of continuity was not broken, and the new Court stepped into the shoes of the old Court, with the same organization and virtually the same Statute.3 With a satisfactory record, of PCIJ and its international composition having a body of highly competent and great jurists of the world as its judges, there is little wonder that the ICJ was inaugurated with high hopes and great expectations. As P.H. Spaak, first President of the General Assembly, said at the inaugural sitting of the International Court of Justice on April 18, 1946: I would not venture to assert that the International Court of Justice is the most important organ of the United Nations...but I am convinced that it is of quite exceptional importance...I am deeply convinced that peace will not be established until countries have recognized the truth that there can be no civilized world nor any lasting peace, if there be not complete and absolute respect for international jurisdiction and its judgments.4