The Marshall Islands Judgments and Multilateral Disputes at the World Court: Whither Access to International Justice?

Abstract

In this short contribution, I argue that the International Court of Justice's reasoning on jurisdiction in its recent Marshall Islands decisions is ill-founded but that, in any event, these cases raised complex issues related to third parties warranting further investigation. I conclude that admissibility grounds might have been a more credible avenue to avoid proceeding to the merits, prompting the need to identify alternate dispute settlement fora, particularly the Security Council.

Keywords: International Court of Justice, jurisdiction, nuclear weapons, existence of a dispute, Security Council, multilateral disputes, interrelated obligations

JEL Classification: K33, K39, K40