Australia and the International Court of Justice

This research project on 'The Potential and Limits of International Adjudication' was funded by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery grant scheme  (DP180101318).

The aim of the project was to identify and assess the place of adjudication in international affairs, focussing on the experience of a particular country - Australia - and a particular institution - the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Chief Investigators on the project were Melbourne Laureate Professor Hilary Charlesworth (now Judge of the International Court of Justice ) and Professor Margaret Young. Dr Emma Nyhan, now at the University of Manchester , was a Research Fellow on the project. The links below provide further materials about the project, including its research outputs, events and audio recordings, and other resources.

The project demonstrated the importance of international adjudication to a peaceful and stable international legal order. It provided a clear account of the cases in which Australia has been involved with the International Court of Justice, the United Nation’s principal judicial organ, over a 75 year period. The project recorded the experiences of diplomats, ministers, jurists and civil servants, and documented previously unseen archival material. Australian and other national engagements with the Court’s contentious proceedings and advisory jurisdiction were detailed in scholarly publications and accessible audio-visual and other materials.