paragraph 147 in volume 2, chapter 9, Jurisdiction and Admissibility: General Concepts
The contentious jurisdiction of the Court is concerned with the decision on ‘disputes’. The Statute emphasizes the centrality of ‘dispute’ for the work of the Court in two provisions. Article 38, paragraph 1, states that the function of the Court is ‘to decide in accordance with international law such disputes [les différends] as are submitted to it’.1 More specifically, in Article 40, on the institution of proceedings, the Statute prescribes that in the document…