A Century after Mavrommatis: Why Disputes before the ICJ Cannot Be Taken for Granted

A century after the PCIJ's Mavrommatis definition of 'dispute', the ICJ's 2016 Marshall Islands judgments, which for the first time upheld a jurisdictional objection based on the non-existence of a dispute, reignited debate over whether the Court had abandoned that founding precedent in favor of excessive formalism. This article argues that such criticism is misplaced. Tracing the evolution of the concept of dispute from the PCIJ's early, more permissive case law (which allowed disputes to arise from a claimant's unilateral action) through the 1939 Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria case and the ICJ's subsequent jurisprudence, including Interpretation of Peace Treaties, South West Africa, and the 2011 Georgia v Russia (CERD) judgment, the article shows that the 'awareness test' applied in Marshall Islands is not a betrayal of Mavrommatis but the logical culmination of a long, uneven doctrinal development. It further examines the rationale behind the dispute requirement, framing it not as a matter of form or a shield for respondent states, but as a substantive precondition ensuring that parties have had a genuine opportunity to engage with one another's claims before judicial proceedings begin. Finally, reviewing post-Marshall Islands case law, including The Gambia v Myanmar (2022), the article concludes that fears the decision would chill community-interest litigation before the Court have proven unfounded.