Notes on the International Court of Justice (Part 8)—Interim Accord (FYROM v. Greece) and the Settlement of the Macedonian Name Dispute: Knowing and Seizing upon Many Things or One Big Thing in Treaty Interpretation and International Dispute Settlement in General

During the lead-up to the Final Agreement settling the Macedonian name dispute, apparently no or scant mention was made of the Interim Accord (FYROM v. Greece) case that FYROM brought in 2008 and won overwhelmingly in 2011 against Greece at the International Court of Justice ("ICJ" or the "Court"). This paper highlights the structure and main points of the ICJ judgment in the Interim Accord case and analyzes the part of the judgment on the main substantive issue. The paper argues that, even on its own terms, the Court's judgment did not conduct the interpretation exercise to the full and further that the experience with the Court's judgment in this case does flash a warning light to any decision-maker that it must not lose sight of "the one big thing", which may vary from case to case, in a dispute settlement endeavor if it wants to have its decision implemented. This experience also teaches any State party in a dispute that it may have to know and unyieldingly seize upon the one big thing in the dispute settlement effort in order to achieve its goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]