6/22/2024–|Last updated: 6/22/202408:21 AM (Mecca time)
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez announced that his country will join South Africa in its lawsuit against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
Rodriguez said in statements published on Saturday, “Cuba decided to participate, as a third country, in South Africa’s complaint against Israel before the International Court of Justice.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated – in a statement yesterday – that “Cuba will use its right to present, as a third country, its interpretation of the rules of the agreement, which Israel has blatantly violated through its actions in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza.”
She added that the Havana Initiative comes in line with “its firm and sustainable commitment to support and contribute as much as possible to the legitimate international efforts aimed at putting an end to the genocide committed against the Palestinian people.”
A third state, not a party to the conflict, can present its legal arguments before the International Court of Justice to support the interpretation of the Genocide Convention.
At the end of last December, South Africa resorted to the International Court of Justice, where it filed a complaint accusing Israel of violating the United Nations Convention on the Prevention of Genocide concluded in 1948, in its war on Gaza.
In a ruling issued on January 26, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide during its military operations in Gaza.
On May 24, the court again ordered Israel to stop its military attack “immediately” in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, but Tel Aviv refused to comply with the decisions, and the Israeli army continues its attacks.
Expand the circle
The lawsuit filed by South Africa before the International Court of Justice against Israel received Arab and international support and endorsement.
Since the initial rulings, several countries – including Turkey, Libya, Palestine, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile and Spain – have submitted requests to intervene in the case using a clause in the statute of the International Court of Justice that allows third parties to join the proceedings.
The International Court of Justice is the highest judicial body of the United Nations, and its decisions are legally binding, but it lacks mechanisms to implement them.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 123,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and thousands missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.