Studying Country-Specific Engagements with the International Court of Justice

Countries engage with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as litigants, as participants in advisory proceedings and, less directly, through contributions of nationals as judges or lawyers. A broad range of scholarship within the discipline of public international law examines this engagement. Specific regional experiences are often emphasized and grouped, for example, by western, African or Asian accounts. Yet the nature and extent of scholarship on a single country’s engagement with the Court are less commonly explored. This article surveys scholarly approaches to specific domestic engagement with the ICJ. It focuses on six countries—Australia, France, Nicaragua, Russia, the UK and the USA—and examines the scholarship generated by each of these countries’ encounters with the Court. This scholarship provides insights into politics, history, institutional practice, professional experience and international legal doctrine. Preliminary in scope, the article points to the value of empirical, historical and country-specific accounts of the work of the ICJ.