Painting stripes on a horse does not make it a zebra : The present and potential future of the International Court of Justice

Abstract:   Upon a closer examination of the role and performance of the International Court of Justice, we find that it does primarily fulfil its role and obligation as far as the UN charter and the Courts stature are concerned. It is upon the application of Kjell Goldmann’s Internationalists Programme that we find ourselves wanting more from the Court. If we assume the development of international institutions, exchange, communication and the like to be desirable and necessary for the continued development of international peace and security, the ICJ can be shown to have had historical opportunities to affect the development to such an effect, but lacks the formal means to do so. With the subscription to the internationalists programme, we find that there are plenty of potential improvements that could reasonably be made. These are primarily about the official influence of the Court, with regards to cases relevant to it and its jurisdiction, which is severely crippled by current regulatory framework. This is a condition shared with plenty of other international courts in their various forms. Essentially, the current state of the ICJ lacks the desirable attributes and possibilities to influence the development of international law to any meaningful extent. If we indeed were to look for an international court with the means to build international legal institutions and seek to further enforce international peace and security, the ICJ is not what we are looking for.