The International Court of Justice acts as a world court.

The Court’s jurisdiction is twofold: it decides, in accordance with international

law, disputes of a legal nature that are submitted to it by States (jurisdiction in contentious cases); and it gives advisory opinions on legal
questions at the request of the organs of the United Nations, specialized agencies or one related organization authorized to make such a
request (advisory jurisdiction).

JURISDICTION
Contentious Jurisdiction
States entitled to appear before the Court
States not members of the United Nations parties to the Statute
States not parties to the Statute to which the Court may be open
Basis of the Court’s jurisdiction
Declarations recognizing the jurisdiction of the Court as compulsory
Treaties
Advisory Jurisdiction
Organs and agencies authorized to request advisory opinions

The International Court of Justice was established by the Charter of the United Nations, which provides that all Member States of the
United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Court’s Statute. The Statute, together with the Rules of Court, organizes the composition and
functioning of the Court.

Since October 2001, the Court has also issued Practice Directions for use by States appearing before it.

Charter of the United Nations

The Charter of the United Nations, which was signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It is
also the constitutive text of the International Court of Justice, which was created by the Charter.

Provisions on the Court can be found in Article 7, paragraph 1, Article 36, paragraph 3, and Articles 92-96 (Chapter XIV) of the Charter.

Statute of the Court

The Statute of the International Court of Justice is annexed to the Charter of the United Nations, of which it forms an integral part. The
main purpose of the Statute is to organize the composition and functioning of the Court.

Like the Charter, the Statute can only be amended by a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly and ratification by two thirds of
the States (Art. 69).

Should the ICJ wish its Statute to be amended, it must submit a proposal to that effect to the General Assembly by sending a written
communication to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Art. 70). Hitherto, however, the Statute of the Court has never been
amended.

Rules of Court
Article 30 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice provides that “[t]he Court shall frame rules for carrying out its functions”.
These Rules are intended to supplement the general rules set out in the Statute and to make detailed provision for the steps to be taken
to comply with them.

Practice Directions
The Court adopted its first Practice Directions for use by States appearing before it in October 2001. Practice Directions supplement,
rather than alter, the Rules of Court. They reflect the Court’s ongoing review of its working methods. Once adopted by the Court,
amendments to the Practice Directions are posted on the Court’s website and published in the Court’s Yearbook, with a note of any
temporal reservations relating to their applicability.

Other Texts
In addition to the Statute and the Rules of Court, other legal documents have been adopted by the Court or the United Nations, or
concluded by the Court with the host country, and govern certain aspects of the Court's activities.

The Court has a twofold role: to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States (contentious cases)
and to give advisory opinions (advisory procedures) on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and
specialized agencies.

In contentious proceedings, when a dispute is brought before the Court by a unilateral application filed by one State against another
State, the names of the parties in the official title of the case are separated by the abbreviation v. for the Latin versus (e.g., Cameroon v.
Nigeria). When a dispute is submitted to the Court on the basis of a special agreement between two States, the names of the parties are
separated by an oblique stroke (e.g., Indonesia/Malaysia).

The first case entered in the General List of the Court (Corfu Channel (United Kingdom v. Albania)) was submitted on 22 May 1947.

Between 22 May 1947 and 1 January 2019, 176 cases were entered in the General List.
The Registry is the permanent administrative secretariat of the Court. It is accountable to the Court alone. It is headed by a Registrar,
assisted by a Deputy-Registrar.

Since the Court is both a court of justice and an international organization, the Registry’s tasks are not only those of a service helping in
the administration of justice - with sovereign States as litigants - but also those of an international secretariat. Its activities are both judicial
and diplomatic, as well as administrative.
The Registry consists of three Departments (Legal Matters; Linguistic Matters; Information), a number of technical Divisions
(Personnel/Administration; Finance; Publications; Library; IT; Archives, Indexing and Distribution; Text Processing and Reproduction;
Security and General Assistance) and the secretaries to Members of the Court. It currently comprises some 100 officials, either permanent
or holding fixed-term contracts, appointed by the Court or the Registrar.

All officials take an oath of loyalty and discretion on commencing their duties. Essentially, they enjoy the same privileges and immunities
as members of comparable missions of diplomatic rank in The Hague. They are subject to Staff Regulations, which are virtually identical
to the United Nations Staff Regulations, and to Instructions for the Registry. Their conditions of employment, salaries and pension rights are
the same as those of United Nations officials of the equivalent category and grade; the costs are borne by the United Nations.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the
Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.

The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only
one not located in New York (United States of America).

The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on
legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the
Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French.

History
The creation of the Court represented the culmination of a long process of developing methods for the pacific settlement of
international disputes, the origins of which can be traced back to classical times.

Article 33 of the United Nations Charter lists the following methods for the pacific settlement of disputes between States: negotiation,
enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and resort to regional agencies or arrangements, to which should also be
added good offices. Some of these methods involve the services of third parties. For example, mediation places the parties to a dispute
in a position in which they can themselves resolve their dispute thanks to the intervention of a third party. Arbitration goes further, in the
sense that the dispute is submitted to the decision or award of an impartial third party, so that a binding settlement can be achieved.
The same is true of judicial settlement (the method applied by the International Court of Justice), except that a court is subject to stricter
rules than an arbitral tribunal, particularly in procedural matters.

Historically, mediation and arbitration preceded judicial settlement. The former was known in ancient India and the Islamic world, whilst
numerous examples of the latter can be found in ancient Greece, in China, among the Arabian tribes, in maritime customary law in
medieval Europe, and in Papal practice.

The origins of arbitration

The modern history of international arbitration is generally recognized as dating from the so-called Jay Treaty of 1794 between the United
States of America and Great Britain. This Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation provided for the creation of three mixed
commissions, composed of equal numbers of American and British nationals, whose task it would be to settle a number of outstanding
questions between the two countries which it had not been possible to resolve by negotiation. While it is true that these mixed
commissions were not strictly speaking organs of third-party adjudication, they were intended to function to some extent as tribunals.
They reawakened interest in the process of arbitration. Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States and the United Kingdom
had recourse to them, as did other States in Europe and the Americas.

The Alabama Claims arbitration in 1872 between the United Kingdom and the United States marked the start of a second, even more
decisive, phase. Under the Treaty of Washington of 1871, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to submit to arbitration
claims by the former for alleged breaches of neutrality by the latter during the American Civil War. The two countries set forth certain
rules governing the duties of neutral governments that were to be applied by the tribunal, which they agreed should consist of five
members, to be appointed by the Heads of State of the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy and Switzerland, the last three
States not being parties to the case. The arbitral tribunal’s award ordered the United Kingdom to pay compensation, which it duly did.
The proceedings served to demonstrate the effectiveness of arbitration in settling of a major dispute, and led during the latter years of
the nineteenth century to a range of developments, namely:

a sharp growth in the practice of inserting in treaties clauses providing for recourse to arbitration in the event of a dispute between the
parties;
the conclusion of general treaties of arbitration for the settlement of specified classes of inter-State disputes;
efforts to construct a general law of arbitration, so that countries wishing to have recourse to this means of settling disputes would not be
obliged to agree each time on the procedure to be adopted, the composition of the tribunal, the rules to be followed and the factors to
be taken into consideration in making the award;
proposals for the creation of a permanent international arbitral tribunal to avoid the need to set up a special ad hoc tribunal to decide
each individual dispute.

The Hague Peace Conferences and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)
The Hague Peace Conference of 1899, convened on the initiative of the Russian Czar Nicholas II, marked the beginning of a third phase
in the modern history of international arbitration. The chief object of the Conference, in which — a remarkable innovation for the time —
the smaller States of Europe, some Asian States and Mexico also participated, was to discuss peace and disarmament. It culminated in
the adoption of a Convention on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which dealt not only with arbitration but also with other
methods of pacific settlement, such as good offices and mediation.

With respect to arbitration, the 1899 Convention provided for the creation of permanent machinery which would enable arbitral tribunals
to be set up as desired and would facilitate their work. This institution, known as the Permanent Court of Arbitration, consisted in essence
of a panel of jurists designated by each country acceding to the Convention — each country being entitled to designate up to four —
from among whom the members of each arbitral tribunal might be chosen. The Convention also created a permanent Bureau, located
in The Hague, with functions corresponding to those of a court registry or secretariat, and laid down a set of rules of procedure to govern
the conduct of arbitrations. Clearly, the name “Permanent Court of Arbitration” is not a wholly accurate description of the machinery set
up by the Convention, which consisted only of a method or device for facilitating the creation of arbitral tribunals as and when
necessary. Nevertheless, the system thus established was permanent, and the Convention “institutionalized” the law and practice of
arbitration, placing it on a more definite and more generally accepted footing. The Permanent Court of Arbitration was established in
1900 and began operating in 1902.

A few years later, in 1907, a second Hague Peace Conference, to which the States of Central and South America were also invited,
revised the Convention and improved the rules governing arbitral proceedings. Some participants would have preferred the Conference
not to confine itself to improving the machinery created in 1899. The United States Secretary of State, Elihu Root, had instructed the
United States delegation to work towards the creation of a permanent tribunal composed of judges who were full-time judicial officers,
with no other occupation, who would devote their time wholly to the trial and decision of international cases by judicial methods. “These
judges”, wrote Secretary Root, “should be so selected from the different countries that the different systems of law and procedure and
the principal languages shall be fairly represented”. The United States, the United Kingdom and Germany submitted a joint proposal for a
permanent court, but the Conference was unable to reach agreement upon it. It became apparent in the course of the discussions that
one of the major difficulties was finding an acceptable way of choosing the judges, since none of the proposals tabled had garnered
widespread support. The Conference confined itself to recommending that States should adopt a draft convention for the creation of a
court of arbitral justice as soon as agreement was reached “respecting the selection of the judges and the constitution of the court”.
Although this court was never in fact to see the light of day, the draft convention that was to have given birth to it enshrined certain
fundamental ideas that some years later were to serve as a source of inspiration for the drafting of the Statute of the Permanent Court of
International Justice (PCIJ).

Notwithstanding the fate of these proposals, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which in 1913 took up residence in the Peace Palace
that had been built for it thanks to a gift from Andrew Carnegie, has made a positive contribution to the development of international
law. The landmark cases that have been decided through recourse to it include the Carthage and Manouba cases (1913) concerning
the seizure of vessels, and the Timor Frontiers (1914) and Sovereignty over the Island of Palmas (1928) cases. Although these cases
demonstrate that arbitral tribunals set up using permanent machinery could decide disputes between States on a basis of law and
justice and command respect for their impartiality, they also threw into bold relief the shortcomings of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration. Tribunals of differing composition could hardly be expected to develop a consistent approach to international law to the
same extent as a permanently constituted tribunal. Besides, there was the entirely voluntary character of the machinery. The fact that
States were parties to the 1899 and 1907 Conventions did not oblige them to submit their disputes to arbitration. What is more, even if
they were minded to do so, they were not duty-bound to have recourse to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, nor to follow the rules of
procedure laid down in the Conventions.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration has recently sought to diversify the services that it can offer, alongside those contemplated by the
Conventions. For example, the International Bureau of the Permanent Court of Arbitration serves as a registry in important international
arbitrations. Moreover, in 1993, the Permanent Court of Arbitration adopted new “Optional Rules for Arbitrating Disputes between Two
Parties of Which Only One Is a State” and, in 2001, “Optional Rules for Arbitration of Disputes Relating to Natural Resources and/or the
Environment”.

For more information on the Permanent Court of Arbitration, please visit its website .

The work of the two Hague Peace Conferences and the ideas they inspired in statesmen and jurists had some influence on the creation
of the Central American Court of Justice, which operated from 1908 to 1918. In addition, they helped to shape the various plans and
proposals submitted between 1911 and 1919, both by national and international bodies and by governments, for the establishment of an
international judicial tribunal, which culminated in the creation of the PCIJ as an integral part of the new international system set up after
the end of the First World War.

The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ)

Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations gave the Council of the League responsibility for formulating plans for the
establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which would be competent not only to hear and determine any
dispute of an international character submitted to it by the parties to the dispute, but also to give an advisory opinion upon any dispute
or question referred to it by the Council or Assembly of the League of Nations. All that remained was for the League Council to take the
necessary action to give effect to Article 14. At its second session early in 1920, the Council appointed an Advisory Committee of Jurists
to submit a report on the establishment of the PCIJ. The committee sat in The Hague, under the chairmanship of Baron Descamps
(Belgium). In August 1920, a report containing a draft scheme was submitted to the Council, which, after examining it and making
certain amendments, presented it to the First Assembly of the League of Nations, which opened in Geneva in November of that year.
The Assembly instructed its Third Committee to examine the question of the Court’s constitution. In December 1920, after an exhaustive
study by a subcommittee, the Committee submitted a revised draft to the Assembly, which unanimously adopted it. This was the Statute
of the PCIJ.

The Assembly decided that a vote alone would not be sufficient to establish the PCIJ, and that the Statute would have to be formally
ratified by each State represented in the Assembly. In a resolution of 13 December 1920, it called upon the Council to submit a protocol
adopting the Statute to the Members of the League of Nations, and decided that the Statute should come into force once a majority of
Member States had ratified it. The protocol was opened for signature on 16 December. By the time of the next meeting of the Assembly,
in September 1921, a majority of the Members of the League had signed and ratified the protocol. The Statute thus entered into force. It
was to be revised only once, in 1929, the revised version coming into force in 1936. Among other things, the new Statute resolved the
previously insurmountable problem of the election of the members of a permanent international tribunal, by providing that the judges
were to be elected concurrently, but independently, by the Council and the Assembly of the League, and that it should be borne in
mind that those elected “should represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world”. Simple as this
solution may now seem, in 1920 it represented a considerable achievement. The first elections were held on 14 September 1921.
Following approaches by the Netherlands Government in the spring of 1919, it was decided that the PCIJ should have its permanent seat
at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which it would share with the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It was accordingly in the Peace Palace
that the Court’s preliminary session devoted to the elaboration of the Court’s Rules opened on 30 January 1922, and it was there too that
its inaugural sitting was held on 15 February 1922, with the Dutch jurist Bernard C. J. Loder as President.

The PCIJ was thus a working reality. The great advance it represented in the history of international legal proceedings can be
appreciated by considering the following:

unlike arbitral tribunals, the PCIJ was a permanently constituted body governed by its own Statute and Rules of Procedure, fixed
beforehand and binding on parties having recourse to the Court;
it had a permanent Registry which, inter alia, served as a channel of communication with governments and international bodies;
its proceedings were largely public and provision was made for the publication in due course of the pleadings, of verbatim records of
the sittings and of all documentary evidence submitted to it;
the permanent tribunal thus established was now able to set about gradually developing a constant practice and maintaining a certain
continuity in its decisions, thereby enabling it to make a greater contribution to the development of international law;
in principle the PCIJ was accessible to all States for the judicial settlement of their international disputes, and States were able to declare
beforehand that for certain classes of legal disputes they recognized the Court’s jurisdiction as compulsory in relation to other States
accepting the same obligation. This system of optional acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Court was the most that it was then possible
to obtain;
the PCIJ was empowered to give advisory opinions upon any dispute or question referred to it by the League of Nations Council or
Assembly;
the Court’s Statute specifically listed the sources of law it was to apply in deciding contentious cases and giving advisory opinions,
without prejudice to the power of the Court to decide a case >ex aequo et bono if the parties so agreed;
it was more representative of the international community and of the major legal systems of the world than any previous international
tribunal had ever been.
Although the Permanent Court of International Justice was brought into being through, and by, the League of Nations, it was
nevertheless not a part of the League. There was a close association between the two bodies, reflected, inter alia, in the fact that the
League Council and Assembly periodically elected the Members of the Court and that both Council and Assembly were entitled to seek
advisory opinions from the Court. However, the latter never formed an integral part of the League, just as the Statute never formed part
of the Covenant. In particular, a Member State of the League of Nations was not by that fact alone automatically a party to the Court’s
Statute.

Between 1922 and 1940 the PCIJ dealt with 29 contentious cases between States and issued 27 advisory opinions. At the same time
several hundred treaties, conventions and declarations conferred jurisdiction upon it over specified categories of disputes. Any lingering
doubts about whether a permanent international judicial tribunal could function in a practical and effective manner were thus dispelled.
The Court’s value to the international community was demonstrated in a number of different ways, and first and foremost by its
development of a proper judicial process. This found expression in the Rules of Court, which the PCIJ originally drew up in 1922 and
subsequently revised on three occasions, in 1926, 1931 and 1936. There was also the PCIJ’s Resolution concerning the Judicial Practice of
the Court, adopted in 1931 and revised in 1936, which laid down the internal procedure to be followed during the Court’s deliberations
on each case. In addition, while helping to resolve some serious international disputes, many of them consequences of the First World
War, the decisions of the PCIJ at the same time often clarified previously unclear areas of international law or contributed to their
development.

For more information on the Permanent Court of International Justice, please see the PCIJ pages on our website.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)

The outbreak of war in September 1939 inevitably had serious consequences for the PCIJ, which had for some years been experiencing a
decline in its level of activity. After its last public sitting on 4 December 1939 and its last order on 26 February 1940, the Permanent Court
of International Justice in fact dealt with no further judicial business and no elections of judges were held. In 1940 the Court relocated to
Geneva, leaving one judge in The Hague together with a few Registry officials of Dutch nationality. Despite the war, consideration
needed to be given to the future of the Court and to the creation of a new international political order.

In 1942 the United States Secretary of State and the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom declared themselves in favour of the
establishment or re-establishment of an international court after the war, and the Inter-American Juridical Committee recommended
that the PCIJ’s jurisdiction should be extended. Early in 1943, the United Kingdom Government took the initiative of inviting a number of
experts to London to constitute an informal Inter-Allied Committee to examine the matter. That Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir
William Malkin (United Kingdom), held 19 meetings, which were attended by jurists from 11 countries. In its report, which was published on
10 February 1944, it recommended:

that the Statute of any new international court should be based on that of the Permanent Court of International Justice;
that the new court shoule retain an advisory jurisdiction;
that acceptance of the jurisdiction of the new court should not be compulsory;
that the court should have no jurisdiction to deal with essentially political matters.
Meanwhile, on 30 October 1943, following a conference, China, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a joint
declaration recognizing the necessity “of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the
principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the
maintenance of international peace and security”.

This declaration led to exchanges between the Four Powers at Dumbarton Oaks (United States), and resulted in the publication on 9
October 1944 of proposals for the establishment of a general international organization, to include an international court of justice. A
meeting was subsequently convened in Washington, in April 1945, of a committee of jurists representing 44 States. This Committee, under
the chairmanship of G. H. Hackworth (United States), was entrusted with preparing a draft Statute for the future international court of
justice, for submission to the San Francisco Conference, which was meeting from April to June 1945 to draw up the United Nations
Charter. The draft statute prepared by the Committee was based on the Statute of the PCIJ and was therefore not a completely new
text. The Committee nevertheless felt obliged to leave a number of questions open which it felt the Conference should decide: Should a
new court be created? In what form should the court’s mission as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations be stated? Should the
court’s jurisdiction be compulsory and, if so, to what extent? How should the judges be elected? The final decisions on those points, and
on the definitive form of the statute, were made at the San Francisco Conference, in which 50 States participated. The Conference
decided against compulsory jurisdiction and in favour of the creation of an entirely new court, which would be a principal organ of the
United Nations, on the same footing as the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship
Council and the Secretariat, and whose statute would be annexed to the Charter, forming an integral part of it. The main reasons that
led the Conference to decide to create a new court were the following:

as the court was to be the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, it was felt inappropriate for that role to be filled by the
Permanent Court of International Justice, with its connection to the League of Nations, which was itself on the point of dissolution;
the creation of a new court was more consistent with the provision in the Charter that all Member States of the United Nations would ipso
facto be parties to the court’s statute;
several States that were parties to the Statute of the PCIJ were not represented at the San Francisco Conference and, conversely,
several States represented at the Conference were not parties to the Statute;
there was a feeling in some quarters that the PCIJ formed part of an older order, in which European States had dominated the political
and legal affairs of the international community, and that the creation of a new court would make it easier for States outside Europe to
play a more influential role. This proved to be true: the membership of the United Nations has grown from 51 in 1945 to 193 in 2018.
Nevertheless, the San Francisco Conference considered that a degree of continuity should be maintained, particularly since the Statute
of the PCIJ had itself been drawn up on the basis of past experience, and had seemed to work well. The Charter therefore clearly stated
that the Statute of the International Court of Justice was based upon that of the PCIJ. At the same time, the necessary steps were taken
to transfer as much of the PCIJ's jurisdiction as possible to the International Court of Justice. In any event, the decision to create a new
court necessarily involved the dissolution of its predecessor. The PCIJ met for the last time in October 1945 and resolved to transfer its
archives and effects to the new International Court of Justice, which, like its predecessor, was to have its seat at the Peace Palace. The
judges of the PCIJ all resigned on 31 January 1946, and the election of the first Members of the International Court of Justice took place
on 6 February 1946, at the First Session of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. In April 1946, the PCIJ was formally
dissolved, and the International Court of Justice, meeting for the first time, elected as its President Judge José Gustavo Guerrero (El
Salvador), the last President of the PCIJ. The Court appointed the members of its Registry (largely from among former officials of the PCIJ)
and held an inaugural public sitting on the 18th of that month. The first case was submitted in May 1947. It concerned incidents in the
Corfu Channel and was brought by the United Kingdom against Albania.

Members of the Court

The International Court of Justice is composed of 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly
and the Security Council. These organs vote simultaneously but separately. In order to be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute
majority of the votes in both bodies. This sometimes makes it necessary for a number of rounds of voting to be held.

In order to ensure a degree of continuity, one third of the Court is elected every three years. Judges are eligible for re-election. Should a
judge die or resign during his or her term of office, a special election is held as soon as possible to choose a judge to fill the unexpired
part of the term.

Elections are held in New York (United States of America) during the annual autumn session of the General Assembly. The judges elected
at a triennial election commence their term of office on 6 February of the following year, after which the Court holds a secret ballot to
elect a President and a Vice-President to hold office for three years.

All States parties to the Statute of the Court have the right to propose candidates. Such proposals are made not by the government of
the State concerned, but by a group consisting of the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (see History) designated by that
State, i.e. by the four jurists who can be called upon to serve as members of an arbitral tribunal under the Hague Conventions of 1899
and 1907. In the case of countries not participating in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, nominations are made by a group constituted
in the same way. Each group can propose up to four candidates, no more than two of whom may be of its own nationality, while the
others may be from any country whatsoever, regardless of whether it is a party to the Statute or has declared that it accepts the
compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ. The names of candidates must be communicated to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
within a time-limit of his/her choosing.

Judges must be elected from among persons of high moral character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective
countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or are jurisconsults of recognized competence in international law.

The Court may not include more than one national of the same State. Moreover, the Court as a whole must represent the main forms of
civilization and the principal legal systems of the world.

Once elected, a Member of the Court is a delegate neither of the government of his own country nor of that of any other State. Unlike
most other organs of international organizations, the Court is not composed of representatives of governments. Members of the Court
are independent judges whose first task, before taking up their duties, is to make a solemn declaration in open court that they will
exercise their powers impartially and conscientiously.
In order to guarantee his or her independence, no Member of the Court can be dismissed unless, in the unanimous opinion of the other
Members, he/she no longer fulfils the required conditions. This has in fact never happened.

When engaged in the business of the Court, the Members of the Court enjoy privileges and immunities comparable with those of the
head of a diplomatic mission. In The Hague, the President takes precedence over the doyen of the diplomatic corps, who is followed by
the Vice-President, after which precedence alternates between judges and ambassadors. Each Member of the Court receives an
annual salary consisting of a base salary (which, for 2016, amounts to US$172,978) and post adjustment, with a special supplementary
allowance of US$15,000 for the President. The post adjustment multiplier changes every month and is dependent on the United Nations
exchange rate between the United States dollar and the euro. On leaving the Court, judges receive an annual pension which, after a
nine-year term of office, is equal to half the annual base salary.

Presidency
The President and Vice-President are elected by the Members of the Court every three years by secret ballot. The election is held on the
date on which Members of the Court elected at a triennial election begin their terms of office or shortly thereafter. An absolute majority is
required and there are no conditions of nationality. The President and Vice-President may be re-elected.

The President presides at all meetings of the Court; he/she directs its work and supervises its administration, with the assistance of a
Budgetary and Administrative Committee and various other committees, all composed of Members of the Court. During judicial
deliberations, the President has a casting vote in the event of votes being equally tied.

In The Hague, where he/she is obliged to reside, the President of the Court takes precedence over the doyen of the diplomatic corps.

The President receives a special supplementary allowance of US$15,000 per annum, in addition to his/her annual salary.

The Vice-President replaces the President in his/her absence, in the event of his/her inability to perform his/her duties, or in the event of a
vacancy in the presidency. He/she receives a daily allowance for doing so. In the absence of the Vice-President, this role falls to the
senior judge.

On 6 February 2018, the Court elected Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf (Somalia) as President and Judge Xue Hanqin (China) as Vice-
President

The following judges have previously served as President or Vice-President:

Guerrero and Basdevant

1946-1949
Basdevant and Guerrero
1949-1952
Sir Arnold McNair and Guerrero
1952-1955
Hackworth and Badawi
1955-1958
Klaestad and Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan
1958-1961
Winiarski and Alfaro
1961-1964
Sir Percy Spender and Wellington Koo
1964-1967
Bustamante y Rivero and Koretsky
1967-1970
Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan and Ammoun
1970-1973
Lachs and Ammoun
1973-1976
Jiménez de Aréchaga and Nagendra Singh
1976-1979
Sir Humphrey Waldock and Elias
1979-1982 (Sir Humphrey Waldock died on 15 August 1981. The functions of the Presidency were thereafter exercised by Judge Elias as
Acting President, by virtue of Articles 13 and 14 of the 1978 Rules of Court.)
Elias and Sette-Camara
1982-1985
Nagendra Singh and Ladreit de Lacharrière
1985-1988 (Judge Ladreit de Lacharrière died on 10 March 1987. On 6 May 1987 the Court elected Judge Mbaye to be its Vice-President
for the remainder of his predecessor’s term.)
J. M. Ruda and Mbaye
1988-1991
Sir Robert Jennings and Oda
1991-1994
Bedjaoui and Schwebel
1994-1997
Schwebel and Weeramantry
1997-2000
Guillaume and Shi
2000-2003
Shi and Ranjeva
2003-2006
Higgins and Al-Khasawneh
2006-2009
Owada and Tomka
2009-2012
Tomka and Sepúlveda-Amor
2012-2015
Abraham and Yusuf
2015-2018

Chambers and Committees

Chambers
The Court generally discharges its duties as a full Court (a quorum of nine judges, excluding judges ad hoc, being sufficient). But it may
also form permanent or temporary chambers.

The Court has three types of chamber:

the Chamber of Summary Procedure, comprising five judges, including the President and Vice-President, and two substitutes, which the
Court is required by Article 29 of the Statute to form annually with a view to the speedy despatch of business;
any chamber, comprising at least three judges, that the Court may form pursuant to Article 26, paragraph 1, of the Statute to deal with
certain categories of cases, such as labour or communications;
any chamber that the Court may form pursuant to Article 26, paragraph 2, of the Statute to deal with a particular case, after formally
consulting the parties regarding the number of its members - and informally regarding their name - who will then sit in all phases of the
case until its final conclusion, even if in the meantime they cease to be Members of the Court.
With respect to the formation of a Chamber pursuant to Article 26, paragraph 1, of the Statute, it should be noted that in 1993 the Court
created a Chamber for Environmental Matters, which was periodically reconstituted until 2006. However, in the Chamber’s 13 years of
existence no State ever requested that a case be dealt with by it. The Court consequently decided in 2006 not to hold elections for a
Bench for the said Chamber.

The provisions of the Rules concerning chambers of the Court are likely to be of interest to States that are required to submit a dispute to
the Court, or have special reasons for doing so, but prefer, for reasons of urgency or other reasons, to deal with a smaller body than the
full Court.

Despite the advantages that chambers can offer in certain circumstances, under the terms of the Statute their use remains exceptional.
Their formation requires the consent of the parties. While, to date, no case has been heard by either of the first two types of chamber, by
contrast six cases have been dealt with by ad hoc chambers.

Chamber of Summary Procedure

The current composition of this Chamber which, at the request of the parties, may hear and determine cases by summary procedure is
as follows:

Members:
President
Abdulqawui Ahmed Yusuf
Vice-President
Xue Hanqin
Judges
Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade
Julia Sebutinde
Kirill Gevorgian
Substitute members:
Judges
Joan E. Donoghue
James Richard Crawford
Chambers under Article 26, paragraph 2 (ad hoc chambers)
No such chamber is currently active.

The first ad hoc chamber was formed in 1982 in the case concerning the Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area
between Canada and the United States, and the second in 1985 in the case concerning the Frontier Dispute between Burkina Faso and
the Republic of Mali. The third was set up in March 1987 in the case concerning Elettronica Sicula S.p.A. (ELSI) between the United States
of America and Ital, and the fourth was formed in May 1987 in the case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute
between El Salvador and Honduras. 2002 saw the formation of the fifth, to deal with the Frontier Dispute (Benin/Niger) case, and the sixth,
to hear the Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier
Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening) (El Salvador v. Honduras).

Every Chamber has comprised five members. The Chamber which sat in the Gulf of Maine case comprised four Members of the Court
(one of whom possessed the nationality of one of the parties) and one judge ad hoc chosen by the other party. The Chamber formed in
the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali) case comprised three Members of the Court and two judges ad hoc chosen by the
parties. The Chamber formed in the Elettronica Sicula S.p.A. (ELSI) case comprised five Members of the Court (two of whom possessed
the nationality of one of the parties). The Chamber which sat in the case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute
comprised three Members of the Court and two judges ad hoc chosen by the parties, as did the two Chambers formed in 2002.
Committees
Budgetary and Administrative Committee
Administrative decisions are prepared for the full Court by a Budgetary and Administrative Committee composed of the President
(chair), the Vice-President and four or five other judges elected triennially.

The present composition of the Committee is as follows:

President
Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf
Vice-President
Xue Hanqin
Judges
Peter Tomka
Ronny Abraham
Giorgio Gaja
Julia Sebutinde
Dalveer Bhandari
Rules Committee
In 1979, the Court established a standing Rules Committee. This committee advises the Court on procedural issues and working methods.

The present composition of the Committee is as follows:

Judges
Peter Tomka (Chairman)
Joan E. Donoghue
Giorgio Gaja
Dalveer Bhandari
Patrick Lipton Robinson
James Richard Crawford
Kirill Gevorgian
Library Committee
Established in 1970, the Library Committee oversees the library's programme of acquisitions and supervises its the ongoing modernization.

The present composition of the Committee is as follows:

Judges
Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade (Chairman)
Giorgio Gaja
Dalveer Bhandari
Nawaf Salam

Judges ad hoc
Under Article 31, paragraphs 2 and 3, of the Statute of the Court, a State party to a case before the International Court of Justice which
does not have a judge of its nationality on the Bench may choose a person to sit as judge ad hoc in that specific case under the
conditions laid down in Articles 35 to 37 of the Rules of Court. Before taking up their duties, a judges ad hoc are required to make the
same solemn declaration as an elected Member of the Court. They do not necessarily have to be (and often does are not) nationals of
the State that designates them.

Judges ad hoc take part in any decision concerning the case on terms of complete equality with their colleagues and receive a fee for
every day on which they discharge their duties, that is to say, every day spent in The Hague in order to take part in the Court’s work, plus
each day devoted to consideration of the case outside The Hague.

A party must announce as soon as possible its intention to choose a judge ad hoc. In cases where there are more than two parties to the
dispute, which is a not infrequent occurrence, the rule is that parties acting in the same interest are restricted to a single judge ad hoc
between them and that, if one of them already has a judge of its nationality on the Bench, they are not entitled to choose a judge ad
hoc at all. There are therefore various possibilities, the following of which have actually occurred in practice: two regular judges having
the nationality of the parties; two judges ad hoc; a regular judge of the nationality of one of the parties and a judge ad hoc; neither a
regular judge having the nationality of one of the parties nor a judge ad hoc.

It follows that the composition of the International Court of Justice will vary from one case to another, and that the number of judges
sitting in a given case will not necessarily be 15. There may be fewer, if one or more elected judges do not sit, or as many as 16 or 17 if
there are judges ad hoc; in theory there may even be more than 17 judges on the Bench if there are several parties to a case which are
not acting in the same interest. The composition of the Court may also sometimes vary from one phase of a case to another: in other
words, the composition need not necessarily be the same for provisional provisional measures, preliminary objections and merits.
Nevertheless, once the Court has been finally constituted for a given phase of a case, i.e., from the opening of the oral proceedings on
that phase until the delivery of the judgment relating to it, its composition will not change.

Legal scholars have not seriously questioned the right of an elected judge to sit in a case when he/she has the nationality of one of the
parties. It is evident from the result of the votes taken by the Court and the judges' separate and dissenting opinions that such judges
have often voted against the submissions put forward by their own country. The institution of the judge ad hoc, on the other hand, has
not received unanimous support. Whilst the Inter‑Allied Committee of 1943 argued that “[c]ountries will not in fact feel full confidence in
the decision of the Court in a case in which they are concerned if the Court includes no judge of their own nationality, particularly if it
includes a judge of the nationality of the other party”, certain members of the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly of the United
Nations expressed the view, during the discussions between 1970 and 1974 on the role of the Court, “that the institution, which was a
survival of the old arbitral procedures, was justified only by the novel character of the international judicial jurisdiction and would no
doubt disappear as such jurisdiction became more firmly established”. Nevertheless, numerous writers take the view that it is useful for the
Court to have a judge participating in its deliberations who is more familiar with the views of one of the parties than the elected judges
may sometimes be.

Current Judges ad hoc

The following judges ad hoc have been chosen in the cases currently pending before the Court:

Question of the Delimitation of the Continental Shelf between Nicaragua and Colombia beyond 200 nautical miles from the Nicaraguan
Coast (Nicaragua v. Colombia)
Nicaragua: Mr. Leonid Skotnikov
Colombia: Mr. Charles Brower
Alleged Violations of Sovereign Rights and Maritime Spaces in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Colombia)
Nicaragua: Mr. Yves Daudet
Colombia: Mr. Donald M. McRae
Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya)
Kenya: Mr. Gilbert Guillaume
Dispute over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia)
Chile: Mr. Bruno Simma
Bolivia: Mr. Yves Daudet
Immunities and Criminal Proceedings (Equatorial Guinea v. France)
Equatorial Guinea: Mr. James Kateka
Certain Iranian Assets (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America)
Islamic Republic of Iran: Mr. Djamchid Momtaz
United States of America: Mr. Charles Brower
Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation)
Ukraine: Mr. Fausto Pocar
Russian Federation: Mr. Leonid Skotnikov
Jadhav Case (India v. Pakistan)
Pakistan: Mr. Tassaduq Hussain Jillani
Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899 (Guyana v. Venezuela)
Guyana: Ms Hilary Charlesworth
Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Qatar v. United Arab Emirates)
Qatar: Mr. Yves Daudet
United Arab Emirates: Mr. Jean-Pierre Cot
Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council under Article 84 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Bahrain, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates v. Qatar)
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates: Mr. Nabil Elaraby
Qatar: Mr. Yves Daudet
Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council under Article II, Section 2, of the 1944 International Air Services Transit Agreement
(Bahrain, Egypt and United Arab Emirates v. Qatar)
Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates: Mr. Nabil Elaraby
Qatar: Mr. Yves Daudet
Alleged violations of the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of
America)
Islamic Republic of Iran: Mr. Djamchid Momtaz
United States of America : Mr. Charles Brower
Relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem (Palestine v. United States of America)
Palestine: Mr. Gilbert Guillaume

How the Court Works

The Court may entertain two types of cases: legal disputes between States submitted to it by them (contentious cases) and requests for
advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by United Nations organs and specialized agencies (advisory proceedings).

Contentious cases
Only States (States Members of the United Nations and other States which have become parties to the Statute of the Court or which
have accepted its jurisdiction under certain conditions) may be parties to contentious cases.

The Court is competent to entertain a dispute only if the States concerned have accepted its jurisdiction in one or more of the following
ways:

by entering into a special agreement to submit the dispute to the Court;

by virtue of a jurisdictional clause, i.e., typically, when they are parties to a treaty containing a provision whereby, in the event of a
dispute of a given type or disagreement over the interpretation or application of the treaty, one of them may refer the dispute to the
Court;
through the reciprocal effect of declarations made by them under the Statute, whereby each has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court
as compulsory in the event of a dispute with another State having made a similar declaration. A number of these declarations, which
must be deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General, contain reservations excluding certain categories of dispute.
States have no permanent representatives accredited to the Court. They normally communicate with the Registrar through their Minister
for Foreign Affairs or their ambassador accredited to the Netherlands. When they are parties to a case before the Court they are
represented by an agent. An agent plays the same role, and has the same rights and obligations, as a solicitor or avoué in a national
court. However, since international relations are at stake, the agent is also as it were the head of a special diplomatic mission with
powers to commit a sovereign State. He/she receives communications from the Registrar concerning the case and forwards all
correspondence and pleadings, duly signed or certified, to him. In public hearings the agent opens the argument on behalf of the
government he/she represents and lodges the submissions. In general, whenever a formal act is to be done by the government
represented, it is done by the agent. Agents are sometimes assisted by co-agents, deputy agents or assistant agents and always have
counsel or advocates, whose work they co-ordinate, to assist them in the preparation of the pleadings and the delivery of oral argument.
Since there is no special International Court of Justice Bar, there are no conditions that have to be fulfilled by counsel or advocates to
enjoy the right of pleading before it, the only exception being that they must have been appointed by a government to do so.

Proceedings may be instituted in one of two ways:

Through the notification of a special agreement: this document, which is bilateral in character, can be lodged with the Court by either or
both of the States parties to the proceedings. A special agreement must indicate the subject of the dispute and the parties thereto.
Since there is neither an “applicant” State nor a “respondent” State, in the Court’s publications their names are separated by an oblique
stroke at the end of the official title of the case, e.g., Benin/Niger.
By means of an application: the application, which is unilateral in character, is submitted by an applicant State against a respondent
State. It is intended for communication to the latter State and the Rules of Court contain stricter requirements with regard to its content.
In addition to the name of the party against which the claim is brought and the subject of the dispute, the applicant State must, as far as
possible, indicate briefly on what basis - a treaty or a declaration of acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction - it claims that the Court has
jurisdiction, and must succinctly state the facts and grounds on which its claim is based. At the end of the official title of the case the
names of the two parties are separated by the abbreviation v. (for the Latin versus), e.g., Nicaragua v. Colombia.
The date of the institution of proceedings, which is that of the receipt by the Registrar of the special agreement or application, marks the
opening of proceedings before the Court. Contentious proceedings include a written phase, in which the parties file and exchange
pleadings containing a detailed statement of the points of fact and of law on which each party relies, and an oral phase consisting of
public hearings at which agents and counsel address the Court. As the Court has two official languages (English and French), everything
written or said in one language is translated into the other. The written pleadings are not made available to the press and public until the
opening of the oral proceedings, and only then if the parties have no objection.

After the oral proceedings the Court deliberates in camera and then delivers its judgment at a public sitting. The judgment is final,
binding on the parties to a case and without appeal (at the most it may be subject to interpretation or, upon the discovery of a new
fact, revision). Any judge wishing to do so may append an opinion to the judgment.

By signing the Charter, a Member State of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the decision of the Court in any case to which it
is a party. Since, furthermore, a case can only be submitted to the Court and decided by it if the parties have in one way or another
consented to its jurisdiction over the case, it is rare for a decision not to be implemented. A State which considers that the other side has
failed to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgment rendered by the Court may bring the matter before the Security
Council, which is empowered to recommend or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment.

The procedure described above is the normal procedure. However, the course of the proceedings may be modified by incidental
proceedings. The most common incidental proceedings are preliminary objections, which are raised to challenge the competence of
the Court to decide on the merits of the case (the respondent State may contend, for example, that the Court lacks jurisdiction or that
the application is inadmissible). The matter is one for the Court itself to decide. Then there are provisional measures, interim measures
which can be requested by the applicant State if it considers that the rights that form the subject of its application are in immediate
danger. A third possibility is that a State may request permission to intervene in a dispute involving other States if it considers that it has an
interest of a legal naturein the case, which might be affected by the decision made. The Statute also makes provision for instances when
a respondent State fails to appear before the Court, either because it totally rejects the Court’s jurisdiction or for any other reason. Failure
by one party to appear does not prevent the proceedings from taking their course, although the Court must first satisfy itself that it has
jurisdiction. Finally, should the Court find that parties to separate proceedings are submitting the same arguments and submissions
against a common opponent in relation to the same issue, it may order the proceedings to be joined.

The Court discharges its duties as a full court but, at the request of the parties, it may also establish ad hoc chambers to examine specific
cases. A Chamber of Summary Procedure is elected every year by the Court in accordance with its Statute.

The sources of law that the Court must apply are: international treaties and conventions in force; international custom; the general
principles of law; judicial decisions; and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists. Moreover, if the parties agree, the Court can
decide a case ex aequo et bono, i.e., without confining itself to existing rules of international law.

A case may be brought to a conclusion at any stage of the proceedings by a settlement between the parties or by discontinuance. In
case of the latter, an applicant State may at any time inform the Court that it does not wish to continue the proceedings, or the two
parties may declare that they have agreed to withdraw the case. The Court then removes the case from its List.

Advisory proceedings
Advisory proceedings before the Court are only open to five organs of the United Nations and 16 specialized agencies of the United
Nations family or affiliated organizations.

The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council may request advisory opinions on “any legal question”. Other United Nations
organs and specialized agencies which have been authorized to seek advisory opinions can only do so with respect to “legal questions
arising within the scope of their activities”.

When it receives a request for an advisory opinion the Court must assemble all the facts, and is thus empowered to hold written and oral
proceedings, similar to those in contentious cases. In theory, the Court may do without such proceedings, but it has never dispensed with
them entirely.
A few days after the request has been filed, the Court draws up a list of the States and international organizations that are likely to be
able to furnish information on the question before the Court. Such States are not in the same position as parties to contentious
proceedings: their representatives before the Court are not known as agents, and their participation in the advisory proceedings does
not render the Court’s opinion binding upon them. Usually the States listed are the member States of the organization requesting the
opinion. Any State not consulted by the Court may ask to be.

It is rare, however, for the ICJ to allow international organizations other than the one that requested the opinion to participate in advisory
proceedings. The only non-governmental international organizations that has ever been authorized by the ICJ to furnish information did
not in the end do so (International Status of South West Africa). The Court has rejected all such requests by private parties.

The written proceedings are shorter than in contentious proceedings between States, and the rules governing them are relatively flexible.
Participants may file written statements, which sometimes form the object of written comments by other participants. The written
statements and comments are regarded as confidential, but are generally made available to the public at the beginning of the oral
proceedings. States are then usually invited to make oral statements at public sittings.

Advisory proceedings conclude with the delivery of the advisory opinion at a public sitting.

Such opinions are essemtially advisory; in other words, unlike the Court’s judgments, they are not binding. The requesting organ, agency
or organization remains free to give effect to the opinion as it sees fit, or not to do so at all. However, certain instruments or regulations
provide that an advisory opinion by the Court does have binding force (e.g., the conventions on the privileges and immunities of the
United Nations).

Nevertheless, the Court's advisory opinions are associated with its authority and prestige, and a decision by the organ or agency
concerned to endorse an opinion is as it were sanctioned by international law.

Financial Assistance to Parties

Secretary-General’s Trust Fund to Assist States in the Settlement of Disputes through the International Court of Justice

In 1989, with a view to encouraging States to submit their disputes to the Court, the Secretary-General of the United Nations set up a trust
fund to provide financial assistance in certain circumstances. Today the fund is open to all States wishing to submit a dispute, provided
that the jurisdiction of the Court (or the admissibility of the application) is not or is no longer in question. A further purpose of the fund is to
help States parties to a dispute to comply with the judgment rendered by the Court.

Current Members

President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf

Somalia
Member of the Court since 6 February 2009; re-elected as from 6 February 2018; Vice-President of the Court from 6
February 2015 to 5 February 2018; President of the Court since 6 February 2018
Biography
Vice-President Xue Hanqin
China
Member of the Court since 29 June 2010; re-elected as from 6 February 2012; Vice-President of the Court since 6 February
2018
Biography

Judge Peter Tomka

Slovakia
Member of the Court since 6 February 2003; re-elected as from 6 February 2012; Vice-President of the Court from 6
February 2009 to 5 February 2012; President of the Court from 6 February 2012 to 5 February 2015
Biography

Judge Ronny Abraham

France
Member of the Court since 15 February 2005; re-elected as from 6 February 2009 and as from 6 February 2018; President of
the Court from 6 February 2015 to 5 February 2018
Biography
Judge Mohamed Bennouna
Morocco
Member of the Court since 6 February 2006; re-elected as from 6 February 2015
Biography

Judge Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade

Brazil
Member of the Court since 6 February 2009; re-elected as from 6 February 2018
Biography

Judge Joan E. Donoghue

United States of America
Member of the Court since 9 September 2010; re-elected as from 6 February 2015
Biography

Judge Giorgio Gaja

Italy
Member of the Court since 6 February 2012
 Biography

Judge Julia Sebutinde

Uganda
Member of the Court since 6 February 2012
Biography

Judge Dalveer Bhandari

India
Member of the Court since 27 April 2012, re-elected as from 6 February 2018
Biography

Judge Patrick Lipton Robinson

Jamaica
Member of the Court since 6 February 2015
Biography
Judge James Richard Crawford
Australia
Member of the Court since 6 February 2015
Biography

Judge Kirill Gevorgian

Russian Federation
Member of the Court since 6 February 2015
Biography

Judge Nawaf Salam

Lebanon
Member of the Court since 6 February 2018
Biography
Judge Yuji Iwasawa
Japan
Member of the Court since 22 June 2018
Biography

Mr. Philippe Couvreur

Belgium
Registrar since 10 February 2000, re-elected on 8 February 2007 and again on 3 February 2014