A Little Bit of History

The Permanent Court of International Justice, which was established 1920 under the League of Nations.

In 1946 the judges of the Permanent Court of Justice resigned and 5 February 1946 the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council elected the first members of the Court of Justice. In April 1946 the Permanent Court of International Justice was officially dissolved, and the court on its first session elected as its first president a judge Hosu Gustav Gerroro (Salvador), who was the last president of the Permanent Court of Justice. The first session took place on the 18^th of April 1946.

English and French are its two official languages.

The Court’s work is characterized by a wide range of judicial activity. Its main functions are to settle legal disputes submitted to it by member states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions. The ICJ has dealt with relatively few cases in its history, but there has clearly been a large willingness to use the court since the 1980s, especially among developing countries. The United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986, and so accepts the court’s jurisdiction only on a case-to-case basis. Chapter XIV of the United Nations Charter gives right to the UN Security Council to enforce World Court rulings, but this is subject to the veto of the Permanent Five. Presently there are twelve cases on the World Court’s list of cases.