International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice has been incredibly busy on two fronts at this conference, advisory and contentious. The advisory portion of the ICJ is led by ICJ president, Scarlett Attari. The advisory case this year was about the prohibition of nuclear weapons. The side arguing that nuclear weapons should be banned says that because these are WMDs that cannot discriminate between civilian and military personnel, that it is not humanitarian. They also compared them to chemical and biological weapons because of that quality, both of which are banned under the Geneva Convention for that very reason. Supporters of the nuclear weapons claim that they are needed to protect them from other countries with nuclear weapons, similar to the gun control debate in America, they’re suspicious that other countries will not honor the nuclear disarmament, thus leaving their own countries defenseless. This has been an awesome conference for ICJ with some of the most informed participants of KUNA.

ICJ also has the contentious side where they can try what are effectively international criminal cases. This year, ICJ President Cole Privette, presided over a case of Nicaragua accusing the United States of unjust military action in previous years. The American defense argued that they were operating in collective self defense, which is a claim that was often refuted by the Nicaraguans by saying that their actions were not large enough to warrant foreign military intervention under International Customary Law, which the ICJ has agreed to accept as legitimate in past cases. Also, the U.S. acted before help was formally requested by the directly affected nations. Overall, this has been an extremely interesting case, without a clear cut answer which is really incredible to be able to see argued.