Determination Of The Existance Of Dispute In Contentious Cases Of The International Court Of Justice

There are still so many disputs with complex natures needed to be settled nowadays againstthe international situation.As one existing part of the international community,dispute really matters a lot in international relationships.Peaceful settlement of disputes is not only the objective and purpose of the United Nations,but also an important part of the study of international law.Most Chinese and foreign scholars will discuss the concept of “dispute” in chapter “peaceful settlement of disputes” of their books.However,compared to how to judge whether there exists a dispute,these concepts are too abstrct and simpleand contribute little to the judicial practices,and in fact there are disputes or contentions in the international law over the issue of what is an international law.On March 17,2016,the International Court of Justice issued the prelimitary judgment of the “Alleged Violations of Sovereign Rights and Maritime Spaces in the Caribbean Sea” Case found that the Court has jurisdiction over this case;but ad hoc Judge Caron proposed in his Dissenting Opinion that there is no dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia for the adjudication of the Court,therefore the Court has no jurisdiction over this case.So what is a justified international dispute to the International Court of Justice?Whereas there's no clear criterion provided in the Statute of the International Court of Justice,Rules of Court and international conventions or treaties,the system of how to judge a dispute is develped by the judicial practice.From 1924 the Permanent Court of Justice put forward the definition of dispute in the Mavrommatis Case for the first time,to 2016 the International Court of Justice dismissed one case soley depended on the reason of there is no dispute between the parties for the first time,the Hague Courts constantly develop and improve the criterions for the determination of a international dispute.However,the Mavrommatis Case not only gave birth to the definition of “dispute”,but also established the “flexibility principle” applied in the judging of jurisdiction,which made the relevant rules of dispute determination become more and more ambiguous and damaged the application consistency of these rules.Additionally,different cases have different circumstances,all criterions are spread in these cases without centralized,detailed,explicit description and comparation,such situation makes the Court incur deviations to some extent in the application of the same rule when the Court only refer to one paragraph or even one sentence of its precedents.Even though an opposite outcome did not arise because of the accumulation of such deviations in years,it still departs from the original purpose the Court to establish the rule.Therefore,the author will try to find the first case which put forward the rule and analyse its application details,compare how the same rule works in different cases in order to clarify the substancial meaning of dispute,and through the analysis on four aspects of the definition and nature of dispute,claim & positive opposition,objective determination of substance and the basic introduction of the dispute determination of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes,aiming to clarify what is an international disputein the view of the International Court of Justice.