We are living through dramatic days of the direct use of force by one State against another across an internationally recognized frontier. Today's issue is not one of indirect aggression but of direct conquest. Apart from the failed but bloody and destructive attempt to conquer the Republic of Korea in the early 1950s, this use of force is largely without parallel in the 45 years in which the United Nations Charter has been in force. As has been widely appreciated, current events rather evoke events of the 1930s.

Equally unparalleled is the unity and trenchancy of the resultant resolutions of the Security Council. Those resolutions are replete with invocations of international law and the authority of the Security Council to bind States – to bind both the object of the sanctions and the States enjoined to apply sanctions. Current concerns thus focus on a direct use of force which the Security Council has authoritatively condemned and is seeking vigorously to deal with by applying the panoply of powers accorded it by the terms of the Charter.

I cannot speculate on whether the International Court of Justice may play a part in these portentous proceedings, nor can I address events bearing on cases pending before the Court; I am obliged to confine my remarks to the substance of what I have earlier expressed in Court opinions. Within those confines, I do wish to make some observations on what part the Court can play in dealing with the legal aspects of the use of force in international relations, and what role it has played.