States Declarations of Intervention = ICJ

[Renee]

Hi there. I’ve been working hard to encourage dates to submit declarations of intervention and probably the most active person on this, having started an organization committed to it, next to of course Sam Husseini.
But I am so not a lawyer; I am a long time Palestine activist and community organizer type, so here are a few questions that I’m hoping you can help me with:

1. Am I right that after January 11th or 12th, while people can still submit declarations of intervention and or even invoke, it would be joined to the South African case? Is it true that there is no additional opportunity for provisional relief measures to be ordered by the court than those that come out of the hearing on the 11th and 12th? Or is it still possible to request relief measures on some basis, or for a different state to do so?
2. Is there any way to track these submissions? We can sometimes find things like an articles about Ukraine or other cases, saying how many submissions there were, and when these happened. But I don’t see any record of these things at the ICC itself on their website. Is there any way to know who has submitted – or who plans on submitting – Declarations of intervention?
3. How likely do you think it is that from January 11th and 12th there might be a cease-fire order by the ICJ?
4. How concerned are you about the head of the world Court being a long-time state-department person, and having defended the United States in the Nicaragua case? I know that these things are decided by nine judges, but I assume she gets to pick which nine judges? Are there any procedures where someone with such close ties with the main player – who isn’t even a signer of the convention – recuse themselves? I assume that the more declarations of intervention, the better chance of the court having to play it straight. What’s your experience or perspective?
5. South Africa is usually pretty on the ball. I’m sort of surprised that they had not lined up declarations of intervention before filing. Of course I haven’t dealt with them directly for a while but I was an activist from the anti-apartheid movement and so I’m very, very familiar with the quality and style of the African National Congress folks; they were the only groups that I could consistently rely on for really smart analysis, as well as good sense of how you organize communities. So I can’t imagine they’re not thinking ahead to the next steps from there, like trying to bring a uniting-for-the-peace resolution and push the highly problematic ICC to do something. I would love to hear your view of these things. What do you think is the least, and most, likely to come from this case?

Thanks A Million

Dr Renee Levant, Campaign To Invoke The Genocide Convention

[SA]

Extremely important post and all your other efforts are highly commendable. I have no expertise whatsoever but I wanted to ask if there was a danger that, given the full out control by US of Israel in all international organisations that this may well end up with a political either stalemate or in fact a pseudo-vindication of Israel giving it carte blanche to fully carry out the genocide.
I base this on the fact that the ICG president Joan E Donoghue is from the USA and has worked in various posts for the USG. But even more worrying is her dissent in the case of Mauritius vs UK. As per wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Donoghue

“As an ICJ judge, she issued a dissenting opinion in the case Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, in which the ICJ issued an advisory opinion in 2017 on the Chagos Archipelago sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly. The Court deemed the United Kingdom’s separation of the Chagos Islands from the rest of Mauritius in 1965, leading to the expulsion of the Chagossians when both were colonial territories, to be unlawful.[13] Judge Donoghue dissented from the majority opinion, reasoning that:

I consider that the Advisory Opinion has the effect of circumventing the absence of United Kingdom consent to judicial settlement of the bilateral dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius regarding sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago and thus undermines the integrity of the Court’s judicial function. For this reason, I believe that the Court should have exercised its discretion to decline to give the Advisory Opinion.[14][15]

[SA]

Sorry posted before I finished. In addition also some court may members may be influenced or coerced by the USG. A recent incident raises this concern is what happened to the vice president of the court, a Russian Kirill Gevorgian. Again according to Wikipedia he was voted out and in his place a Romanian judge was appointed.

“On 9 November 2023, at the 2023 International Court of Justice judges election, Gevorgian failed to be re-elected as the Eastern European representative at the ICJ, marking the first time that Russia would not be represented at the Court. Gevorgian received the votes of 77 UN General Assembly members, while Romania’s representative, Bogdan Aurescu, received that of 117, being elected instead.[3]”

Of the current 15 members on the ICJ website 5 are NATO members, US, Romania (as per above), France, Slovakia and Germany. There are also Japan and Australia who are NATO affiliates. If the US can twist the arm of one of the other 8 they may manage to get a majority that will not condemn Israel. Given the vehemence by which Israel and the US have taken on this case, I fear we may have the wrong outcome to what is desired.

[Coldish]

Good to know that our host Craig is in Den Haag today to see fair play (we hope) at the ICJ.

[Author]

Posts