John.St said:
It is arguable to say that the case for Eastern Greenland is comparable to Falklands/Malvinas, besides it being treated not by the ICJ but by its predecessor the PCIJ. On the one hand, without having studied it, I doubt it is as complex. What was under dispute was not ten times more if we consider that the result would very much affect the dispute for the 'dependencies', Antarctica and vast portions of sea, and that these kinds of resources are much more valuable now than when E.G. was tried. Besides, the standing of the disputants in the world was reasonably balanced in that case, it wasn't so politicized and it happened more than 80 years ago.
We could argue how much the cases compare or don't but, one way or the other, I agree with expatinowncountry's comments about the ICJ not being as effective as you're suggesting. Very often, when defending the British case for the islands, UN organs are harshly discredited (with words like 'just a lobby organization', 'obsolete', 'useless', 'Argentina has been lobbying', 'just a non-binding recommendation', etc.) Except the ICJ, which is curiously suggested to work effectively. But that's conveniently biased; all of these instruments have their usefulness and their limitations.
The ICJ is pretty much discredited, perhaps even more than the rest. Moreover, sending the whole of the dispute to judicial arbitration would be an 'all-or-nothing' approach which I don't think adequate for this case, compared to a negotiation. It could be used, though, to settle specific parts during a negotiation.
You seem to be assigning much importance to the fact of a compulsory judgement being binding, but that just means that the UN may consider sanctions if one part doesn't apply. For Britain, it would imply very little. Military sanctions? Forget it, the Security Council will hardly decide that, and the UK can easily veto. Economic sanctions against Britain? I very much doubt the UN would decide them and, if they did, they would quite certainly be impossible to enforce.
Therefore, it can be argued that the quality of being binding would, in practical terms, run for Argentina only, making the procedure even less adequate than an advisory ruling, which I don't believe to be as good as a 'multi-dimensional' negotiation, given the complexities involved.
Moreover, if a decision against Britain is reached and she disputes it, it would hit hard on the ICJ and the UN, which is one more reason to make it hard for the judges to be impartial.
If you believe Britain would never challenge a decision, think again. She has very well prepared the political landscape for that. For example, by minimizing the importance of the UN and its non-binding recommendations, while pretending to stand on a higher moral ground just based on an odd interpretation of a doctrine that she never cared to discuss properly, with good results on much of the public opinion while many others simply don't care.
I mean, if Argentina doesn't submit to the ICJ, like it happens with comparable cases (e.g., Golan Heights, Gibraltar), there are reasonable explanations other that her not believing in the case or wanting to make a fuss.
Yet, if you care much about refusals to arbitrate as hints to cases being weak, let's bear in mind that the only proposals to arbitrate were presented by Argentina and rejected by Britain, as stated in quotes that I gave in this post. The proposal to the ICJ that was rejected by Argentina was for the so-called dependencies, which required the sovereignty of the islands to be settled first, as explained in those quotes.
I'm confused 
