In sharp contrast to the high hopes raised by the reconstitution of the International Court of Justice in 1946, its subsequent record has been somewhat less than inspiring; and its impact as an organ for the settlement of disputes has been anything but spectacular. Established as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, it broods at The Hague in idle splendour, waiting hopefully for the occasional suit to be taken before it. Despite the hopes, the promise and the optimism, recourse to adjudication is exceptional, infrequent, and limited to disputes of minor importance.
Writings on the Court are suffused with lamentations over the chasm between the idealized aspirations of its founders and its actual performance. From the depths, however, the call is heard; the vision of the jurists becomes the burden of the reformers — the burden of recasting the machinery of world order. Political theorists, lawyers and institutional reformers are all prepared to shoulder the burden, and each considers it his duty to add to the literature on the Court yet another “epilogue for the improvement….”