The Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de La Haye in States’ Pleadings before the International Court of Justice: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract This article investigates the impact of the Hague Academy courses, published in the Recueil des Cours , on international legal practice. In particular, it examines how states engage with the courses at the International Court of Justice ( ICJ ) as subsidiary means for determining rules of international law. It employs an empirical approach to systematically assess how states utilize the courses to persuade the ICJ , using both quantitative and qualitative tools to analyze all written and oral proceedings of concluded cases and advisory opinions from the ICJ ’s establishment in 1945 to the Academy’s centenary in 2023. In doing so, it aims to illuminate states’ perceptions of the courses’ authoritative value. It begins with a brief introduction; Section 2 discusses the role of the Hague Academy courses as subsidiary means within the doctrine of sources. Section 3 presents the data and analyzes it quantitatively. Section 4 proceeds with a qualitative analysis. Section 5 concludes.