Officials at The Hague, Netherlands, on Jan. 26, on the day the International Court of Justice ruled on emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide.PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/Reuters
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to discuss an international court ruling that orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, the two sides in the case have sharply clashing views on what the order means.
The International Court of Justice ruled on Friday that there is a plausible case that the Israeli military offensive in Gaza might have violated Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention.
The world court, based in The Hague, ordered Israel to take steps to prevent any genocidal acts in the Palestinian territory. It required Israel to provide urgent humanitarian relief to Gaza and to punish anyone whose statements could incite genocide. Its ruling was a response to a South African application for emergency orders against Israel.
Algeria, one of the African countries currently on the UN Security Council, has announced it will take the court ruling to the Security Council for a debate on Wednesday. Algeria’s foreign ministry says it wants the Security Council to give “binding effect” to the world court’s orders on Israel.
The court order is considered legally binding on Israel, which is a member of the court and a signatory of the Genocide Convention. But the court – the highest UN judicial body – has no enforcement mechanism of its own, and only the Security Council can enforce its decisions.
Legal experts say it is too early for the Security Council to consider any enforcement moves, since Israel was given a month to report back to the world court on how it would comply with the orders. Israel’s ally, the United States, is one of the countries with veto power at the Security Council, so it could veto any enforcement decision.
But if the court ruling remains on the Security Council’s agenda this week, it would create pressure on the United States to provide a more detailed response to the ruling. Its officials had earlier dismissed the genocide case as “meritless.”
In the aftermath of the court ruling, Israel and South Africa are giving very different interpretations of the judgment and what it means. Israeli officials said its military is already following international law in Gaza, so the ruling does not affect it. South African leaders, by contrast, said the court ruling is effectively a requirement for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Legal experts say the truth is somewhere in between, with Israel obliged to reduce its military campaign to some extent.
On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military offensive will continue. “We will not relent,” he said, accusing the South African government of working on behalf of “new Nazis.”
Harden: Benjamin Netanyahu’s hubris is a risk to U.S. leadership
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Sunday that the government “sees great importance in the humanitarian aspect of the campaign” and will always operate “in accordance with international law.” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said the court ruling did not tell Israel to stop its military campaign but merely reminded it of its obligations under international law.
South Africa’s interpretation of the ruling was the complete reverse. It said the ruling, in effect, prohibited Israel from carrying out any further killings of civilians in Gaza. “If you read the order, by implication a ceasefire must happen,” South African International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor told journalists. “How do you provide aid and water without a ceasefire?”
Legal experts disagreed with the interpretations of both countries. Hannah Woolaver, associate professor of public international law at the University of Cape Town, noted that South Africa had explicitly asked the world court to order an immediate ceasefire, and the court had declined to do so. The court told Israel to prevent acts such as killings only when they are committed with genocidal intent, she told The Globe and Mail.
Marina Sharpe, an assistant professor of international law at Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Quebec, said the court’s emergency orders do not prohibit all killings, which would amount to a ceasefire. “Rather it prohibits killing carried out with an intent to destroy a large segment of the Palestinian group,” she told The Globe.
But in effect, the court’s order shows that Israel is not meeting its obligations to allow humanitarian relief in Gaza, she said. “It is difficult to see how Israel can practically comply with the court’s order without significantly scaling back its military operation,” she said.