Who gets to speak at the World Court? Parties, counsel and the missing ethics code

Treaty text

Contentious cases: states only

“Only states may be parties in cases before the Court.” Individuals, companies and NGOs cannot bring or defend a contentious case.

Advisory proceedings work differently: states and intergovernmental organisations may present statements under Article 66 of the Statute. NGOs have a narrower side route, described in chapter 7.

Treaty text

Article 42

“The parties shall be represented by agents. They may have the assistance of counsel or advocates before the Court.” The agent is the state’s formal representative. The Statute says nothing about who counsel and advocates must be: no admission, no qualification, no nationality rule. In practice states choose national lawyers, foreign barristers, professors and diplomats.

Example: Vaughan Lowe KC, a member of Essex Court Chambers in London, lists South Africa v. Israel among his reported cases as counsel, “ICJ 2024- (for South Africa)”.

Academic commentary and court documents

Nothing binding from the Court

Two practitioners writing in the American Society of International Law’s proceedings put it plainly: individuals appearing before the Court “are not subject under international law to any compulsory code of conduct”.

The Court’s Practice Directions do contain rules about counsel, but they deal with conflicts of position, such as a former judge appearing as counsel. None addresses honesty or misleading the Court.

Non-binding principles

The nearest substitute: the Hague Principles

In 2010 a study group of the International Law Association presented the Hague Principles on Ethical Standards for Counsel Appearing before International Courts and Tribunals. They are soft law: guidance that binds no one unless a court adopts it.

Court code (contrast)

Other tribunals chose a binding code

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia adopted a code of conduct for counsel with its own disciplinary panel. Article 4: “If there is any inconsistency between this Code and any other codes of practice and ethics governing counsel, the terms of this Code prevail in respect of counsel’s conduct before the Tribunal.”

Academic commentary

Different rules for the same conduct

National conduct rules “can vary considerably across different jurisdictions”, and “Counsel who are academics or are not admitted in any jurisdiction may not be subject to any conduct rules.”

Professional guidance

English barristers carry their rules with them

Bar Council guidance: the BSB Handbook “applies to your conduct in court and before tribunals … wherever those courts and tribunals may be sitting”. Sections 2.B, 2.C and 2.D apply “whether you are practising or providing legal services in England and Wales or elsewhere”. Rule rC13 adds a duty to comply with applicable foreign conduct rules, unless they are inconsistent with the Core Duties.

Foreign work is not subject to the cab-rank rule, so an English barrister may decline it without breaching the duty to accept work in their field (rC30.5).

Our analysis

The Court and the home regulator

The Court controls its own procedure and weighs the evidence and arguments put to it. We found no published disciplinary procedure for counsel before the ICJ. A home regulator can, in principle, act on conduct abroad where its rules apply; for English barristers, the BSB. We found no published instance of a regulator disciplining counsel for conduct before the ICJ. That is a gap in our search, not proof that none exists.

Treaty text and UN resolution

Immunities

Agents, counsel and advocates “shall enjoy the privileges and immunities necessary to the independent exercise of their duties.” General Assembly resolution 90(I) of 1946 gives effect to this during their missions, and says the immunities exist in the interests of justice, not for personal benefit; for counsel representing a state, the state may waive them.

Our analysis: these protections aim at legal process interfering with the work. Whether they would limit a home regulator’s discipline is, as far as we found, unsettled. Domestic offences such as perverting the course of justice protect a country’s own justice system; in our assessment they are unlikely to reach conduct in The Hague, but we found no authority either way.

Court practice directions

Practice Directions VII and VIII

Direction VII: parties should not nominate as judge ad hoc anyone acting, or who acted in the previous three years, as agent, counsel or advocate in another case, nor appoint as counsel anyone sitting as judge ad hoc elsewhere. Direction VIII: parties should not designate as agent, counsel or advocate anyone who in the previous three years was a Member of the Court, a judge ad hoc, Registrar, Deputy-Registrar or a senior Registry official.

Nothing in the Directions corresponds to the English rule against knowingly or recklessly misleading the court.

Treaty text

Two routes for states

Article 62: a state with “an interest of a legal nature which may be affected by the decision” may ask to intervene. Article 63: when a convention is being interpreted, every state party to it “has the right to intervene”, but “the construction given by the judgment will be equally binding upon it.”

Court press releases and news reporting

South Africa v. Israel draws a crowd

By 2 October 2024 the Court listed Nicaragua (Article 62, January 2024), Palestine (Articles 62 and 63) and Article 63 declarations from Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Spain, Türkiye, Chile and the Maldives. On 11 March 2026 the Netherlands and Iceland filed declarations, as reported citing the Court. On 12 March 2026 Namibia, the United States, Hungary and Fiji filed Article 63 declarations. That is at least 15 states; others filed in between, and we have not reconciled a full count.

Court practice directions

NGOs: a side door, advisory cases only

Under Practice Direction XII an international NGO may submit a written statement on its own initiative in advisory proceedings. It “is not to be considered part of the case file”, is “placed in a designated location in the Peace Palace”, and participating states and organisations are told where to find it. There is no equivalent route in contentious cases such as South Africa v. Israel.

Professional biographies

One London set, two states

Vaughan Lowe KC’s Essex Court Chambers profile lists South Africa v. Israel, “ICJ 2024- (for South Africa)”. Malcolm Shaw KC’s profile at the same chambers lists “Government of Israel (lead counsel) in case before the International Court of Justice, (2023 -)”. The chambers describes itself as “not a firm or a partnership but rather an unincorporated association of self-employed sole practitioners”.

Our analysis: under English rules that arrangement is permitted. Before the ICJ it sits inside the patchwork above: home-bar rules for the English barristers, other rules or none for their colleagues on each team. Shared membership tells us nothing, on its own, about any private discussion, and we allege none.

Our summary

The routes in

States choose their teams freely, interventions are for states only, and NGOs have Practice Direction XII in advisory cases. Public hearings can be watched; check the Court’s current arrangements for the public gallery and media accreditation, which we have not set out here.

Our analysis

Open questions

1. Should the ICJ adopt a binding counsel code, as the Yugoslavia tribunal did? 2. If so, who would enforce it: the Court, the state, or home bars? 3. Should states disclose which conduct rules bind each member of their team? 4. Is it fair that an English barrister and an unregulated academic on the same team face different exposure for identical conduct?

Research method

Research method

The Statute, Practice Directions, resolution 90(I), ICJ press releases, the ICTY code, Bar Council guidance and the chambers profiles were read on 5 November 2026. The draft supplied to us was checked line by line; claims we could not trace to a document we read were removed or labelled.

Coverage limitation

Coverage limits

We could not retrieve the January 2024 verbatim record (CR 2024/2), so delegation lists are not quoted here. Academic works by Skinner, Sarvarian and Longobardo, and a Leiden-hosted ASIL article that the draft mislabelled, were not read and are not relied on. The total number of intervening states is not reconciled. We found no published case of a regulator disciplining counsel for ICJ conduct; that is a search result, not a finding.