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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the Legalityof the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in 1996 was a landmark case because, forthe first time in history, the legal aspect of nuclear weapons was addressed. Thedecision has evoked controversies regarding the Court’s conclusion, the legal statusof international humanitarian law in relation to nuclear weapons, and a newlyintroduced concept of state survival. While much legal scholarship discusses andcriticizes the legal significance of the opinion, there has not been enough scholar-ship examining the Court’s specific choice of words and concepts that sustain itswider ideological and political position in the opinion. The paper argues that theCourt’s vague and controversial logic is attributed to its confrontation with twointernational orders/codes: the legal order (or international law) and the politicalorder (or state practice). The paper engages in legal semiotics as methodology todecode legal text and discover a deep structure that sustains networks of codes,according to which text is interpreted. Through the semiotic examination of threesets of key concepts (1) ‘‘permitted’’ and ‘‘prohibited,’’ (2) ‘‘threat of use’’ and‘‘possession of the weapon,’’ and (3) ‘‘state survival,’’ the paper shows the ICJ’sconfrontation with two orders/codes and eventual prioritization of the political orderover the international legal order. The analysis of the opinion based on legalsemiotics indicates an intimate and inseparable relationship between state practiceand international law, which must be disentangled for the sake of the rule of