ICJ to issue order in South Africa genocide case this week

The International Court of Justice will issue an order on South Africa’s request for provisional measures against Israel this Friday, January 26, the court said in a statement.

It’s important to note that this will not be the final ruling on the case, only on the provisional measures requested by South Africa, to “protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention” and “to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide”, according to the ICJ’s statement.

Al Jazeera spoke to Michael Becker, assistant professor of public international law at Trinity College in Dublin about what to expect when the UN’s highest court meets on Friday.

“What the court is going to be deciding on Friday is not whether Israel is in breach of any of the Genocide Convention,” said Becker, who is also a former associate legal officer at the ICJ.

“This is about … the interim relief that South Africa is seeking while the case is pending,” says Becker.

Becker says that “first, we’ll see if the court says that South Africa met the basic test for provisional measures to be ordered”.

“Many ICJ experts, and I would agree with this view, think that South Africa did do enough to show that its claims under the Genocide Convention are at least plausible, and very importantly, that the Palestinian population of Gaza faces a real and imminent risk of irreparable harm,” he said.

“And nothing that’s happened in the last two weeks, I think, has changed that assessment,” he added.

In regards to what interim measures the court might then order, Becker notes that the court “isn’t limited to what South Africa has asked for”.

“If [the court] decides to issue provisional measures, it can formulate whatever set of measures it thinks is most appropriate,” he says.

“So, while I think the court will want to say something about Israel’s military operations, I’m not convinced that they will be willing to go quite as far as South Africa has asked them to go, ordering a complete suspension of military activities.”

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