ICJ Documents: Free Resources
The International Court of Justice is the primary adjudicative body of the United Nations. It is a court of general jurisdictions and hears disputes between nations. The ICJ maintains a well-designed website hosting a variety of resources for researchers:
- Cases: Content in the “cases” tab is organized using a variety of subheadings and is conducive to browsing. There is no keyword search function within this tab.
- Basic documents: The “basic documents” tab includes core ICJ texts, including the statute of the court and practice-oriented materials.
- Site search vs. document search:
- “Site search” offers a single keyword search box, and searches the webpages on the site. This is a good place to start when searching for all documents pertaining to a single matter.
- Conversely, “document search” offers several search fields, thus greater search precision, but only searches the PDF documents stored on the site, and results list identifies documents individually (not organized by matter).
WorldLII
Database last updated in 2016
ICJ Documents: Subscription Databases
Some ICJ materials are available in Westlaw and Lexis Advance, but the ICJ website’s offerings are more comprehensive. The most efficient way to locate ICJ resources in these platforms is to type “International Court of Justice” in the main search bar, and select suggested resources. ICJ decisions are also available in Oxford; select United Nations as jurisdiction to locate the court.
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Oxford Reports on International LawPublic international case law on international courts, domestic courts and ad hoc tribunals. All reported decisions have a headnote, the full text of the decision, and are linked to the Oxford Law Citator.
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WestlawType "International Court of Justice" in main search bar and select database. Select scope note within "Decisions" databases to determine coverage.
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Lexis Advance: International Court of Justice JudgmentsAs with Westlaw, can search for "International Court of Justice" in the main search bar to locate available databases. Locate Scope Note in Lexis databases determine current coverage.
