The International Court of Justice and Ethnic Conflicts: challenges and opportunities

Minority groups and stateless nations have traditionally been the targets of brutal state violence. Nevertheless, these groups do not have standing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and therefore cannot hold a violating State accountable when political bodies, such as the Security Council, fail to intervene. Their inability to do so has led to the misimpression that the work of the ICJ is irrelevant to protecting minority groups at times of ethnic conflict; this has led to a void in the existing literature regarding the ICJ's role in this matter. This article intends to correct this misperception and fill the gap in the literature.