Women and the International Court of Justice

The chapter will explore the place of women in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Any treatment of women and international law would be incomplete without addressing the relationship between women and the principal judicial organ of the UN, which is often labelled as the world court. Better understanding the place of women in the ICJ will help to elucidate the role of women within this strand of international law-making. The particular angle adopted in this chapter will also shed new light on women as beneficiaries of international law and aspects of methodologies and theoretical approaches to international law. The chapter is organised around three angles: (1) analysis of the role of women judges in the ICJ’s decision-making; (2) interrogation of the treatment of women’s issues by the ICJ; and (3) examination of the place of feminist approaches and methodologies in the judgments and advisory opinions of the ICJ.