All member states of the UN are party to the ICJ Statute and may initiate contentious legal cases; however, advisory proceedings may be submitted only by certain UN organs and agencies.

Initiated by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the conference involved all the world's major powers, as well as several smaller states, and resulted in the first multilateral treaties concerned with the conduct of warfare.

[5] Among these was the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which set forth the institutional and procedural framework for arbitral proceedings, which would take place in The Hague, Netherlands.

Although the proceedings would be supported by a permanent bureau—whose functions would be equivalent to that of a secretariat or court registry—the arbitrators would be appointed by the disputing states from a larger pool provided by each member of the convention.

A second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, which involved most of the world's sovereign states, revised the convention and enhanced the rules governing arbitral proceedings before the PCA.

During this conference, the United States, Great Britain and Germany submitted a joint proposal for a permanent court whose judges would serve full-time.

[6] The Hague Peace Conferences, and the ideas that emerged therefrom, influenced the creation of the Central American Court of Justice, which was established in 1908 as one of the earliest regional judicial bodies.

The court's widespread acceptance was reflected by the fact that several hundred international treaties and agreements conferred jurisdiction upon it over specified categories of disputes.

The Second World War effectively put an end to the court, which held its last public session in December 1939 and issued its last orders in February 1940.

Its 1944 report recommended that: Several months later at the Moscow conference in 1943, the major Allied Powers—China, the USSR, the U.K., and the U.S.—issued a joint declaration recognizing the necessity "of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security".

[10] The following Allied conference at Dumbarton Oaks, in the United States, published a proposal in October 1944 that called for the establishment of an intergovernmental organization that would include an international court.

During the San Francisco Conference, which took place from 25 April to 26 June 1945 and involved 50 countries, it was decided that an entirely new court should be established as a principal organ of the new United Nations.

[13] The ICJ is composed of fifteen judges elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council from a list of people nominated by the national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

According to Article 9, the membership of the court is supposed to represent the "main forms of civilization and of the principal legal systems of the world".

[17] Article 6 of the Statute provides that all judges should be "elected regardless of their nationality among persons of high moral character" who are either qualified for the highest judicial office in their home states or known as lawyers with sufficient competence in international law.

To insure impartiality, Article 16 of the Charter requires independence from their national governments or other interested parties, stating, "No member of the Court may exercise any political or administrative function, or engage in any other occupation of a professional nature."

In practice, members of the court have their own interpretation of these rules and many have chosen to remain involved in outside arbitration and hold professional posts as long as there is no conflict of interest.

For example, during the Nicaragua case, the United States issued a communiqué suggesting that it could not present sensitive material to the court because of the presence of judges from the Soviet bloc.

In its 77 years of history, only five women have been elected to the Court, with former UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston calling for states to take seriously questions of representation in the bench.

[27] As of 6 February 2024[update], the composition of the court is as follows:[28][29] b ICJ President Nawaf Salam has resigned to assume the office of Prime Minister of Lebanon.

However, this does not preclude non-state interests from being the subject of proceedings; for example, a state may bring a case on behalf of one of its nationals or corporations, such as in matters concerning diplomatic protection.

[citation needed] Until rendering a final judgment, the court has competence to order interim measures for the protection of the rights of a party to a dispute.

The UN Charter grants the General Assembly or the Security Council the power to request the court to issue an advisory opinion on any legal question.

[46] On receiving a request, the court decides which states and organizations might provide useful information and gives them an opportunity to present written or oral statements.

Advisory opinions were intended as a means by which UN agencies could seek the court's help in deciding complex legal issues that might fall under their respective mandates.

Certain instruments or regulations can provide in advance that the advisory opinion shall be specifically binding on particular agencies or states, but inherently they are non-binding under the Statute of the court.

In arriving at them, the court follows essentially the same rules and procedures that govern its binding judgments delivered in contentious cases submitted to it by sovereign states.

An advisory opinion derives its status and authority from the fact that it is the official pronouncement of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

[citation needed] There was a marked reluctance on the part of a majority of the court to become involved in a dispute in such a way as to bring it potentially into conflict with the council.

Inadmissibility refers to a range of arguments about factors the court should take into account in deciding jurisdiction, such as the fact that the issue is not justiciable or that it is not a "legal dispute".