The Role of Advocates in the Conception of Advisory Opinion Requests

Law, like medicine, is a practiced discipline, and the practice of international law is no exception. There are different contexts in which that practice unfolds. Here, our focus is on: (1) a specific form of practice, that of “advocates,” understood widely to include counsel advising or representing a party in legal proceedings, diplomats supporting a policy directive, and civil society activists advocating for legal causes; (2) engaging in different forms of legal advocacy, which can be organized analytically under three headings: legal advice and representation, diplomacy, and campaigning; and (3) in a specific context, that of advisory opinions and, more specifically, in the conception of requests for advisory opinions. Such requests are subject to different requirements according to the institutional setting through which they are channeled, but the most prominent and complex setting is that of requests for advisory opinions by the UN General Assembly to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This is the setting we will refer to in our essay.