A Court as the Process of Signification: Legal Semiotics of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in 1996 was a landmark case because, for the first time in history, the legal aspect of nuclear weapons was addressed. The decision has evoked controversies regarding the Court’s conclusion, the legal status of international humanitarian law in relation to nuclear weapons, and a newly introduced concept of state survival. While much legal scholarship discusses and criticizes the legal significance of the opinion, there has not been enough scholarship examining the Court’s specific choice of words and concepts that sustain its wider ideological and political position in the opinion. The paper argues that the Court’s vague and controversial logic is attributed to its confrontation with two international orders/codes: the legal order (or international law) and the political order (or state practice). The paper engages in legal semiotics as methodology to decode legal text and discover a deep structure that sustains networks of codes, according to which text is interpreted. Through the semiotic examination of three sets of key concepts (1) “permitted” and “prohibited,” (2) “threat of use” and “possession of the weapon,” and (3) “state survival,” the paper shows the ICJ’s confrontation with two orders/codes and eventual prioritization of the political order over the international legal order. The analysis of the opinion based on legal semiotics indicates an intimate and inseparable relationship between state practice and international law, which must be disentangled for the sake of the rule of law.