South Africa brings 'benchmark' genocide case before ICJ, order for a Gaza ceasefire 'unlikely'
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Let's break down the case a little bit further and to do so we turn to Rose
00:04 Friedman. She's a Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the
00:08 University of Reading. Rose, thank you so much for joining us. In terms of this
00:14 case, why is it such a benchmark, possibly hallmark, case with the
00:18 International Court of Justice? Well this certainly isn't the first time that the
00:23 International Court of Justice has been asked to provide provisional measures,
00:27 which is an early ruling, on whether or not there may be a genocide occurring in
00:32 Gaza. It did so recently in the case of Gambia and Myanmar to do with the
00:36 Rohingya. But this is a benchmark ruling because as we've seen the UN Security
00:42 Council has not been able to come to agreement on what should happen in terms
00:47 of Israel and Gaza, both in terms of the war in Gaza against Hamas but also in
00:52 terms of the Israeli hostages. The General Assembly has passed resolutions
00:56 but they are not binding and so the next step has been South Africa bringing this
01:00 case to the International Court of Justice in what many see as a somewhat
01:04 political move to try and get some form of ruling as to whether or not what
01:08 Israel is doing in Gaza is in fact lawful under Article 51, its right to
01:12 self-defense of the UN Charter, or whether what it is doing is not lawful.
01:16 And now take me through the process in terms of what the ICJ will be looking
01:21 out for, what kind of arguments it will find in favor of either party to this
01:26 case. Well the hearings today and tomorrow are really sort of the early
01:32 hearings. These are to rule on what's called provisional measures and this is
01:36 because the International Court of Justice can take years or even decades
01:39 to hear cases and to come up with a ruling where two countries have a case
01:44 in front of it. Now of course where you have something like a war you need to
01:48 have some ruling on should there be provisional measures and South Africa
01:53 have put forward a number of these but the one that the the world really is
01:56 taking note of is South Africa would like a ceasefire until such a time as
02:01 the court can rule whether or not there has been what it alleges is a genocide
02:05 in Gaza. Now it's unlikely that the court can rule that there will be a rule for a
02:11 ceasefire as a provisional measure because as I said Israel has his
02:15 absolute right as all states do to self-defense under the UN Charter and
02:19 that right comes over and above all other aspects of the UN's work. Remember
02:24 that this world court is actually part of the United Nations but there are other
02:28 provisional measures that the court may rule on after it's heard the South
02:32 African case today, the Israeli response tomorrow, over the coming weeks we'll see
02:37 whether the court says it is plausible enough that there are atrocities
02:42 occurring that would require these provisional measures to be called for
02:45 while the court then takes the years or decades that it often takes to come up
02:50 with its final ruling. And then how is Israel basically going to respond how do
02:55 you expect it to respond tomorrow in its in its three hours? Well really what this
03:01 all boils down to is whether or not a genocide is being perpetrated and a
03:05 genocide is a very specific international crime it is the worst of
03:10 all international crimes it requires not only the acts but an intention behind
03:16 those acts to destroy in whole or in part a group based on their nationality
03:21 or their ethnicity their religion or their race. What Israel will likely argue
03:26 is that it is acting under self-defense to root out a terrorist organization that
03:31 has at its heart in its charter genocidal aims against Israel. I imagine
03:37 that Israel will put forward a case that says this is not a genocide it is a
03:41 legitimate war and that the Genocide Convention therefore cannot be invoked
03:45 by South Africa on behalf of the Palestinians and therefore it will be
03:50 pushing to not have provisional measures and it will be asking for the court to
03:54 say that if there are any provisional measures relating to the war that it
03:58 would also include the release of the hostages that were kidnapped on the 7th
04:01 of October. And given the fact that this court as you say is largely
04:06 symbolic it cannot enforce these rulings what then are we really hoping
04:12 for ultimately to come out of this? I mean I think it's important to note that
04:17 this is the highest of all international courts it's certainly not symbolic but
04:21 the way that international law works is that there are no enforcement mechanisms
04:25 you can't put a country into prison you can't send the bailiffs around to
04:29 enforce international ruling so we rely on political enforcement as well and
04:34 certainly if Israel were to ignore any provisional measures there would be
04:39 serious political consequences at the international level but we have seen
04:43 that Russia for example has ignored the courts provisional measures, Myanmar has
04:48 done in fact many of the provisional measures laid out over recent years
04:53 and decades have been ignored by one or both parties but it really will be for
04:58 the international community to try and place pressure on both Israel and on
05:04 Palestine if there are provisional measures that they need to implement.
05:07 Rosa thank you so much for that insight that's Rosa Friedman coming to us from
05:12 the University of Reading.