Editing International Court of Justice (section)

=== Establishment of the International Court of Justice ===
Following a peak of activity in 1933, the PCIJ began to decline in its activities due to the growing international tension and isolationism that characterized the era. The [[Second World War]] effectively put an end to the court, which held its last public session in December 1939 and issued its last orders in February 1940. In 1942 the United States and United Kingdom jointly declared support for establishing or re-establishing an international court after the war, and in 1943, the U.K. chaired a panel of jurists from around the world, the "Inter-Allied Committee", to discuss the matter. Its 1944 report recommended that:

* The statute of any new international court should be based on that of the PCIJ;
* The new court should retain an advisory jurisdiction;
* Acceptance of the new court's jurisdiction should be voluntary;
* The court should deal only with judicial and not political matters

Several months later at the [[Moscow Conference (1943)|Moscow conference in 1943]], the major Allied Powers—[[China]], the [[Soviet Union|USSR]], the [[United Kingdom|U.K.]], and the [[United States|U.S.]]—issued a joint declaration recognizing the necessity "of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/moscow.asp|title=The Moscow Conference, October 1943|website=Avalon Project|access-date=3 May 2019|archive-date=8 April 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408190702/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/moscow.asp|url-status=live}}</ref>

The following Allied conference at [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference|Dumbarton Oaks]], in the United States, published a proposal in October 1944 that called for the establishment of an intergovernmental organization that would include an international court. A meeting was subsequently convened in Washington, D.C., in April 1945, involving 44 jurists from around the world to draft a statute for the proposed court. The draft statute was substantially similar to that of the PCIJ, and it was questioned whether a new court should even be created. During the [[San Francisco Conference]], which took place from 25 April to 26 June 1945 and involved 50 countries, it was decided that an entirely new court should be established as a principal organ of the new United Nations. The statute of this court would form an integral part of the [[United Nations Charter]], which, to maintain continuity, expressly held that the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was based upon that of the PCIJ.

Consequently, the PCIJ convened for the last time in October 1945 and resolved to transfer its archives to its successor, which would take its place at the Peace Palace. The judges of the PCIJ all resigned on 31 January 1946, with the election of the first members of the ICJ taking place the following February at the [[First session of the United Nations General Assembly|First Session of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council]]. In April 1946, the [[Permanent Court of International Justice|PCIJ]] was formally dissolved, and the ICJ, in its first meeting, was elected President [[José Gustavo Guerrero]] of El Salvador, who had served as the last president of the PCIJ. The court also appointed members of its Registry, mainly drawn from that of the PCIJ, and held an inaugural public sitting later that month.

The first case was submitted in May 1947 by the United Kingdom against Albania concerning [[Corfu Channel case|incidents in the Corfu Channel]].