ABSTRACT:

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).
In the exercise of its jurisdiction in contentious cases, the International Court of Justice settles
disputes of a legal nature that are submitted to it by States in accordance with international
law. An international legal dispute can be defined as a disagreement on a question of law or
fact, a conflict, or a clash of legal views or interests.
Only States may apply to and appear before the International Court of Justice. International
organizations, other authorities and private individuals are not entitled to institute
proceedings before the Court.
Article 35 of the Statute defines the conditions under which States may access the Court.
While the first paragraph of that article states that the Court is open to States parties to the
Statute, the second is intended to regulate access to the Court by States which are not parties
to the Statute. The conditions under which such States may access the Court are determined
by the Security Council, subject to the special provisions contained in treaties in force at the
date of the entry into force of the Statute, with the proviso that under no circumstances shall
such conditions place the parties in a position of inequality before the Court.
The Court can only deal with a dispute when the States concerned have recognized its
jurisdiction. No State can therefore be a party to proceedings before the Court unless it has in
some manner or other consented thereto.
Since States alone are entitled to appear before the Court, public (governmental) international
organizations cannot be parties to a case before it. However, a special procedure, the advisory
procedure, is available to such organizations and to them alone. This procedure is available to
five United Nations organs, fifteen specialized agencies and one related organization.
Though based on contentious proceedings, advisory proceedings have distinctive features
resulting from the special nature and purpose of the advisory function.
Advisory proceedings begin with the filing of a written request for an advisory opinion
addressed to the Registrar by the United Nations Secretary-General or the director or
secretary-general of the entity requesting the opinion. In urgent cases the Court may take all
appropriate measures to speed up the proceedings. To assemble all the necessary information
about the question submitted to it, the Court is empowered to hold written and oral
proceedings.
This project deals with the jurisdiction of ICJ including contentious and advisory jurisdiction
and the power of court in exercising the same jurisdiction in different situations is dealt in
this project.
RESEARCH QUESTION-
1. Can contentious jurisdiction be evoked even when two parties did not mutually agree
to come before ICJ?
 2. What does Article 36 of ICJ statute talk about jurisdiction of ICJ?
HYPOTHESIS
Whether contentious jurisdiction be evoked when parties agree to resort to other means of
peaceful dispute settlement?
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE-
The main objective of this project is to understand the law related to jurisdiction of ICJ,
When can parties evoke jurisdiction of ICJ. The project also deals with understanding the
extent of jurisdiction available to ICJ.
SCOPE- The scope of the project is restricted to contentious and advisory jurisdiction of ICJ.
And the sources of the study include mostly ICJ documents and other secondary sources like
books on International law and authentic articles of ICJ.
LITERATURE REVIEW:
1. ICJ WEBSITE
most of the relevant information is collected form primary source including the information
available at the official ICJ website where the scope of jurisdiction of ICJ is clearly explained
and also several handbooks on understanding the contentious and advisory jurisdiction of ICJ
is also explained.
2. United Nationals Conference on Trade and development, Dispute Settlement, ICJ,
available at https://unctad.org/en/Docs/edmmisc232add19_en.pdf
This document talks about several aspects related to jurisdiction of International Court of
Justic including several topics like Jurisdiction and Applicable Law, Types of Jurisdiction
including Mainline and Incidental Jurisdiction, Jurisdiction Rationae Personae, Jurisdiction
Rationae Temporis and certain reservations of ICJ in respect to jurisidiction.
SUBMITTED BY
S.Vishnu Ameya