A clarifying moment: Canada and the ICJ ruling on genocide in Gaza

 

Does this mark a coup de grâce for the ‘rules-based international order’?

On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an interim ruling in response to South Africa’s charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This ruling required Israel to stop its military from engaging in actions contrary to international law, and to take immediate steps to ensure humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Within 48 hours Canada and other “Western democracies” cut off funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the organization upon which effective provision of aid to Gaza depends.

This is a clarifying moment in modern history—the day the “rules-based international order” that emerged from the ashes of the Second World War was given the coup de grâce, not by its enemies but by its authors. The gloves were off and so were the masks.

Finding that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further” (§72), the ICJ imposed six “provisional measures” on Israel with the aim of “preserving … the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts” (§59). It stressed that “there is urgency, in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible, before it gives its final decision” (§74, my emphasis).

These measures required, among other things, that Israel:

• “take all measures within its power to prevent … (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” (§78)
• “ensure with immediate effect that its military forces do not commit any of the above-described acts” (§79)
• “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” (§80) (my emphasis)

Though the court has no means of enforcing its orders, they are binding upon all states who have accepted its jurisdiction, including Israel—and Canada.  (more...)

A clarifying moment: Canada and the ICJ ruling on genocide in Gaza