The Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Slovenia v. Croatia marks the anticlimax of a long-running territorial dispute. It is also only the sixth time the CJEU has issued a judgment in a case instituted by one European Union member against another. Among these cases, it is the first to consider an arbitral award in a dispute between members, the first to consider a boundary dispute between members, and the first to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The Court found that it cannot rule on alleged infringements of European Union law when these arise from the breach of a treaty falling outside of the Union's subject-matter competence. Most directly, the Judgment may pose significant consequences for European Union internal affairs in the near term, such as Croatia's ambitions to join the Schengen Area and the Eurozone. More broadly, several of the Court's findings will be relevant beyond the European legal order, particular those concerning the meaning and effect of “ancillary” legal questions, and the bilateral or multilateral character of a dispute involving admission to an international organization.

During his presentation, Mr. McGarry critiqued the common wisdom that the United States is not well served by acceding to compulsory jurisdiction systems and proposed his draft text for a declaration accepting the World Court's compulsory jurisdiction with reservations and conditions that advance American interests.