The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 under the UN Charter. The ICJ is located at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. The primary intent of the ICJ is to settle international legal disputes between states and to give advisory opinions to the other organs of the UN. Created right after the conclusion of the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Trials) and the International Military Tribunal of the Far East (the Tokyo Trials), the ICJ was created at a time of rising interest and faith in international courts. The ICJ comprises fifteen judges serving nine-year terms, rotating five seats every three years. Judges of the Court are elected by an absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council (SC). Members of the Court may not hold any other legal counsel or advisory position outside the Court during their term. Members are eligible for re-election, and every three years, the President and Vice-President of the Court are elected by secret ballot. The president’s roles include breaking tied votes, attending every session of the ICJ, and residing in The Hague. Furthermore, parties of the same interest and privy to a case that does not have a judge of its nationality on the Court may request an ad hoc judge. For example, in a two-party case in which both parties are of separate interest and do not have judges sitting on the Court, the parties may request two ad hoc judges for a total of seventeen judges.

Note: This is a fictional case. The events described below have not actually taken place. However, our goal is that this scenario will challenge delegates to confront important questions about international law.

The Mediterranean has become a key route for migrants seeking safety and opportunity, raising challenging legal questions about how states respond at sea. In this case, Egypt challenges Greece’s response to a series of maritime interceptions in 2024, in which Greek authorities stopped migrant vessels traveling from North Africa and returned individuals without granting access to asylum procedures. Egypt alleges that, in several incidents occurring in both Greek territorial waters and nearby international waters, migrants were transferred back toward unsafe conditions without an opportunity to seek protection. Egypt argues that these actions violate the principle of non-refoulement, a core rule of international refugee and human rights law, which prohibits returning individuals to places where they may face persecution or serious harm. Greece, on the other hand, maintains that such measures are necessary to prevent irregular migration and disrupt human trafficking networks while also fulfilling its responsibilities to monitor and secure its maritime borders. At the heart of this case lies a complex legal question on how international law applies in situations where migration, security, and humanitarian concerns overlap, especially in waters beyond a state’s territory. Judges will need to consider the extent of state obligations under refugee law, human rights law, and the law of the sea. As Greece’s actions carry implications far beyond a single incident, making this a critical test of how international law governs state conduct at sea in an era of rising global migration.

The right of workers to strike is one of the most contested questions in international labor law, and in 2023, it landed before the world’s highest court. The ICJ has been asked to render an advisory opinion on whether the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87)—a landmark international labor law adopted after World War II—protects the right to strike. The legal dispute turns out to be a deceptively simple problem: Convention 87 guarantees workers and employees the right to form and join organizations of their choosing (i.e., unions), but it does not explicitly mention strikes. Labor representatives argue that the right to strike is inherent in freedom of association and indispensable to effective collective bargaining. For decades, this interpretation prevailed. However, organizations representing employers have increasingly questioned this. They argue that Convention No. 87’s failure to mention the right to strike can only be interpreted as a deliberate decision. Under this interpretation, decades of ILO regulations have stretched the Convention beyond what ratifying states ever consented to. Delegates in this committee will grapple with foundational questions of treaty interpretation: when silence in a legal text implies a right and when it precludes one. Judges must also grapple with how much authority international supervisory bodies hold in shaping binding law through interpretation. With 158 state parties, Convention No. 87 is one of the ILO’s most widely ratified agreements, meaning the Court’s opinion will carry consequences far beyond any single country’s labor code. This committee offers delegates a rare opportunity to engage with live, unresolved questions of public international law at the precise moment the real court is wrestling with them.