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Part II. ADVISORY PROCEEDINGS
Advisory proceedings before the Court are open solely to five organs of the United Nations and to 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations family.
The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council may request advisory opinions on “any legal question”. Other United Nations organs and specialized agencies which have been authorized to seek advisory opinions can only do so with respect to “legal questions arising within the scope of their activities”.
When it receives a request for an advisory opinion, the Court, in order that it may give its opinion with full knowledge of the facts, is empowered to hold written and oral proceedings, certain aspects of which recall the proceedings in contentious cases. In theory, the Court may do without such proceedings, but it has never dispensed with them entirely.
A few days after the request is filed, the Court draws up a list of those States and international organizations that will be able to furnish information on the question before the Court. Those States are not in the same position as parties to contentious proceedings: their representatives before the Court are not known as agents and their participation, if any, in the advisory proceedings does not render the Court’s opinion binding upon them. In general, the States listed are the Member States of the organization requesting the opinion. Any State not consulted by the Court may ask to be.
It is rare, however, for the ICJ to allow international organizations other than the one having requested the opinion to participate in advisory proceedings. With respect to non-governmental international organizations, the only one ever authorized by the ICJ to furnish information did not in the end do so (International Status of South West Africa). The Court has rejected all such requests by private parties.
The written proceedings are shorter but as flexible as in contentious proceedings between States. Participants may file written statements, which sometimes form the object of written comments by other participants. The written statements and comments are regarded as confidential, but are generally made available to the public at the beginning of the oral proceedings. States are then usually invited to present oral statements at public sittings.
Advisory proceedings are concluded by the delivery of the advisory opinion at a public sitting.
It is of the essence of such opinions that they are advisory, i.e., that, unlike the Court’s judgments, they have no binding effect. The requesting organ, agency or organization remains free to give effect to the opinion by any means open to it, or not to do so. Certain instruments or regulations can, however, provide beforehand that an advisory opinion by the Court shall have binding force (e.g., conventions on the privileges and immunities of the United Nations).
It remains nevertheless that the authority and prestige of the Court attach to its advisory opinions and that where the organ or agency concerned endorses that opinion, that decision is as it were sanctioned by international law.
The Court has a twofold role: to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States (Contentious cases) and to give advisory opinions (Advisory proceedings) on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.
In Contentious proceedings, when a dispute is brought before the Court by a unilateral application filed by one State against another State, the names of parties in the official title of the case are separated by the abbreviation v. for the Latin versus (e.g., Cameroon v. Nigeria). When a dispute is submitted to the Court on the basis of a special agreement between two States, the names of the parties are separated by an oblique stroke (e.g., Indonesia/Malaysia).
The first case entered in the General List of the Court (Corfu Channel (United Kingdom v. Albania)) was submitted on 22 May 1947.
From 22 May 1947 to 30 July 2010, 149 cases were entered in the General List.