On Form, Substance, and Equality Between States

Abstract

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s 2016 judgments on the three cases Obligations concerning negotiations relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament show the omnipresence of the dichotomy between form and substance in the Court's case-law. Commentators and several dissenting judges have stressed that the judgments represent a landmark in the sense that the Court has radically departed from the consideration of flexible standards in applying procedural rules to the determination of the issue of identification of a legal dispute. In other words, it made form prevail over substance.