Interim orders issued Friday by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to Israel in its war on Gaza are significant, but their immediate implications are “limited,” some experts say.
On Friday, the ICJ issued its preliminary ruling in a case filed by South Africa in December, which accuses Israel of carrying out genocide in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
After rejecting Israel’s request to dismiss the case, the ICJ issued interim instructions to Israel to allow aid to Gaza while taking all measures in its power to prevent acts of genocide. Additionally, Israel must preserve evidence of all its actions in Gaza and report to the ICJ within a month, he said.
The ICJ also expressed deep concern over the fate of Israelis captured by Hamas during its raid into Israel on October 7 and called for their immediate release.
While South Africa claimed that these instructions implicitly translated into a call for an immediate ceasefire, Israel highlighted the absence of this specific wording and confirmed that it would continue its three-month campaign against Gaza.
“In reality, the only agency that can stop the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is Israel,” said Gerry Simpson, a law professor at the London School of Economics. “However, this makes it even more difficult for (Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu to confidently claim to defend the West and the rules-based order. »
Pressure mounts on Israel’s allies
Although a final decision could still take years, the court found that South Africa’s accusations of genocide were well-founded and therefore could not be dismissed as baseless by Israel and its international backers.
Critically, the decision raises the possibility that Tel Aviv’s allies in Washington, London and the European Union could even face the prospect of being implicated in complicity in the genocide at a later date.
Friday’s ruling will also likely have implications beyond those specified by the court, Simpson said. “It also speaks to how the public perceives war. No matter where you get your information from, there is always a suspicion of bias in reporting. This preliminary judgment offers something different. This is a judicial verdict based on a good faith reading of the facts.
Interpretations of the Court’s findings are already polarizing much of the political community. While South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor hailed it as a triumph, others seemed less thrilled.
Speaking after the verdict, Netanyahu said the court had “rightly rejected the outrageous request” to deprive Israel of what he called its “fundamental right to defend itself” by ordering a halt to the fighting. Nonetheless, he continued: “The simple assertion that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians is not only false, it is outrageous, and the court’s willingness to discuss it is a shame that will not be erased for generations.” »
Israel’s right-wing National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was more direct, tweeting simply:The Hague Shmague“.
The arguments in favor of genocide are “plausible”
So far, more than 26,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza while thousands more are lost under the rubble and presumed dead. In addition, some 64,500 people have been injured by Israeli attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said this week.
Although Israel’s emphasis on no specific mention of a ceasefire was predictable, other elements were less likely to feature in Tel Israel’s public reporting of the ruling. .
“The way South Africa and others will interpret the order is also that supporters of Israel have basically been warned off,” said Antonios Tzanakopoulos, professor of public international law at the University of Oxford. .
“The ICJ found that the case of genocide is at least plausible. Therefore, if third states continue to provide Israel with money and weapons, they now do so knowing that they could aid and abet genocide, something not all signatories to the convention can do,” did he declare.
Although it has not accused Israel of committing genocide, Italy halted all arms deliveries to Israel after the Hamas attacks on October 7, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced yesterday. one week.
“That’s what we mean by enforcement,” Tzanakopoulos said. “States are not physical things. You can’t send them to prison. But the kind of pressure that judgments like this generate, and the actions of states like Italy, make cooperation with Israel more difficult,” he said.
Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, all states have a binding obligation not only to refrain from complicity in genocide, but also to prevent it, said Katherine Iliopoulos, legal advisor for the MENA program. to the International Commission of Jurists.
“I think we can infer from the interim measures imposed that the Court considers that there is a serious risk of genocide in Gaza. This is important because it puts all States on notice of this risk, which obliges them to take concrete measures to prevent genocide, in particular by ceasing sales and exports of arms and any other assistance likely to facilitate acts of genocide “, she said.
Iliopoulos highlighted actions already underway by legal groups, such as those in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, to prevent the export of weapons from their countries to Israel on the grounds that they could be used to commit international crimes in Gaza. “Today’s decision will increase pressure on these and other countries to immediately stop arms exports to Israel,” she said.
Compliance remains an issue
A final decision in the case of the genocide against Israel in South Africa could take years. Moreover, as previous preliminary judgments have shown, compliance with the rules remains a problem.
The 2022 ruling against Myanmar over the persecution of the Rohingya minority brought only a partial course change, the United Nations noted in August. Moreover, in the same year, the ICJ’s judgment against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine was simply ignored.
However, this is the first case against a state so closely linked to Western powers, whose existence depends largely on their supply of arms and diplomatic cover.
The extent to which these states now face legal risk could help determine the shape and duration of the war.
