Latin America and the Caribbean in the International Court of Justice—an empirical quantitative analysis (2000–24)

Abstract State practice shows a marked increase in participation before the ICJ by non-Western states since 2000. This article provides an empirical quantitative analysis of the participation of Latin American and Caribbean countries with the ICJ since 1946 with a particular focus on the period 2000–24. Section ‘THE RISE IN PARTICIPATION OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES IN ICJ PROCEEDINGS’ first provides a comparative account of the participation of each of the UN regional groups in both contentious and advisory proceedings and then applies both regional and sub-regional lenses to Latin American and Caribbean encounters with the ICJ and several maps and tables to illustrate them. Section ‘LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES IN CONTENTIOUS PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE SINCE 2000’ presents a thematically ordered survey of all 24 contentious cases involving Latin American and Caribbean countries since 2000, while Section ‘LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES IN ADVISORY PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE SINCE 2000’ examines their high participation in advisory proceedings in the wake of their all-time record participation in the advisory opinion on Climate Change in 2024. The conclusion explains the main empirical findings of the article.