The International Court of Justice: A Survey of Contentious Cases from 2001 to 2011

By Alexander H. Hill

Alex Hill, a second year student at Albany Law School, is an associate editor of International Law Studies. He currently works at the Albany Law School Low Income Taxpayers Clinic and spent the last year interning for the Executive Offices of the New York State Department of Financial Services.

He prepared this paper for the Judicial Process Seminar, Fall 2011.

Publication of his associated presentation was previously published by the Center for Judicial Process.

We are haunted by the greatest unfinished task of civilization which is to create a just and peaceful international order. If such a relationship between states is to be realized, we know its foundations will be laid in law, because legal process is the only practical alternative to force.
--Robert H. Jackson, Address to Inter-American Bar Association, 1941.

After the world witnessed the horrors of man exposed in World War II, the Four Powers of the globe (the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR, and China) collaborated to form an International Court of Justice, keeping in mind the principles of sovereignty and international law. The Four Powers prepared a proposal that was submitted to the United Nations and resulted in the creation, or re-creation, of an international court established with general jurisdiction and the ability to hear complaints between nations, in the hope of bringing and maintaining peace throughout the world.

The court was named International Court of Justice (ICJ). It continues the pursuit of peace through the jurisprudence of international law to this day.

The ICJ is the main judicial organ of the United Nations. Established in 1945, through the Charter of the United Nations, its role is to hear and decide disputes of international law that states submit to, as well as to provide advisory opinions regarding legal inquiries by members of the United Nations and specialized agencies that are authorized to do so. It is the only court in the world that has general jurisdiction over international law.

Given the evolving globalization of the states of the world, as well as the ever growing complex issues that arise internationally, the natural presumption is that the ICJ is a court that would receive and address complex cases involving difficult issues from all over the world, and that the processes utilized by the ICJ would allow for an unbiased decision in such cases. A review of data from the last ten years (2001–2011), however, indicates some issues in that the contentious cases heard by the ICJ are not representative of the globe.

Its role thus appears to be evolving into one of more advisory and procedural, using judicial restraint on an international level to defer more controversial and politically charged issues to other venues such as regional tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and acting as a guide for these tribunals, both in structure and decision making.*
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* Citations to references in this introduction are available in the paper.

To read the entire paper, open HERE.

African Union: An Effective Cure or Western Caricature?

By Christina French

Christina French, a third year student at Albany Law School, is the Editor-in-Chief of Albany Law School's Journal of Science and Technology. She works at New York State United Teacher as a Law Clerk for the Office of General Counsel.

This paper was prepared for the International Law of War & Crime Seminar, Fall 2011 semester.
Ms. French has also been published by the Center for Judicial Process. (See, e.g., The New York Court of Appeals: Analyzing the Status of Workers’ Rights in New York, March 23, 2012.)

The divisive nature of the African continent dates back to the colonial era and decolonization of the 1950s and 1960s. Artificial borders resulted in artificial states and today internal armed conflict is in all likelihood, the primary impediment to the political, economic, and social development of contemporary Africa. In its search for unity, a regional organization such as the African Union may be Africa’s only hope for ending conflict in the divided African nation-states. This paper will address whether the African Union can effectively resolve internal conflicts as a necessary step in African development.

In order to maximize colonial control, colonialists drew artificial borders within African States without any understanding or interest in the ethnicity and tribalism that existed there. This did not pose a problem so much when the colonialists were there, acting as a centralizing government, providing a central police force, and for some, representing a common enemy. However, when the colonists left, there was a power vacuum.

Rather than returning to pre-colonial status, African states maintained the colonial power structure and merely replaced white imperial leaders with black African leaders. The maintenance of the status quo both in terms of borders and in large part, the leadership, created a situation in which conflict management in Africa was more likely to be within states than between states. In fact, the deadliest post-colonial conflicts were within African states. Conditions of civil unrest demanded that any attempt at conflict management, required an understanding of what was causing the internal conflicts more urgently than an understanding of the causes of external war. In other words, the African “situation” required a different response from the international community.*

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* Citations to references in this introduction are available in the paper.

To read the entire paper, open HERE.

Understanding Child Soldiering

The Issue and Its Ramifications

By Bayti Chen

Bayti Chen, a third year student at Albany Law School, is the Vice President of the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. She has interned at the New York State Assembly as a Legislative Assistant to Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

Ms. Chen's paper addresses how children become soldiers and what efforts are needed to save them from losing their childhood to war. She prepared the paper for Professor Grahn-Farley's course, International Child's Rights, Spring 2011.

Wars have transpired since the existence of human life. Originally, adults were the soldiers of war, but since World War II, children began participating in wars and armed conflicts. A recurring pressing matter and trend is the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts. A child is defined as anyone under the age of eighteen. The meaning of “child soldier” has a broader definition than the typical definition of “soldiers” we know today, namely those who join the armed forces and handle machineries and/or are in direct confrontation with enemies. Child soldiers are “associated with any kind of regular or irregular armed group” that participates in all kinds of activities ranging from messengers, porters, sexual purposes, cooks, to front line combatant battles with land mines, bombs, and guns. They are not limited to just fighting in war or using militia weaponry.

Despite the vast amount of laws pertaining to child soldiers and its prevention, there remains the question of why are children still participating in armed conflicts? A majority of the countries that actively use child soldiers are particularly prominent in third world countries. As of today, it was found that more than twenty countries or territories actively involve children in armed conflicts both in government forces and non-state armed groups. Some countries includes Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Columbia, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Liberia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Rwanda, Thailand and Uganda. The underlying causes for the use of child soldiers and the appeal for enlistment ranges from poverty issues and a sense of belonging, to threats of force and death.*

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* Citations to references in this introduction are available in the paper.
To read the entire paper, open HERE.