Establishing the existence of a dispute before the International Court of Justice: drawbacks and implications

In the recent judgments concerning the Marshall Islands cases, the Court adopted a particularly strict approach with respect to the determination of the existence of a dispute between the parties to a contentious case. The author argues, first, that this new approach is hardly consistent with the Court’s jurisprudence and, second, that it excessively narrows the scope of the Court’s jurisdiction and may have a number of drawbacks.