Despite constant declarations on the virtue of dispute settlement through international courts and tribunals,² Germany has never been a very active participant in proceedings before the international community’s “principal judicial organ,” the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In this regard, the year 1999 has brought a change: Besides its forced appearance as one of the respondent States in the Kosovo Cases³ Germany also instituted proceedings with the Court in the LaGrand Case in order to protect the life of one of its nationals, Walter LaGrand, who had been sentenced to the death penalty in Arizona, and to seek reparation for...