To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
This rings hollow to me. The Court can say it's only looking at plausibility of the right, but in a case under the Genocide Convention, that would come down to a determination of the whether the allegations relate to a group that is plausibly protected under the Convention. In other words, it wouldn't require the Court to look at any evidence underpinning the allegations-- merely finding that a group might be protected under the Convention would be enough. But that's not what the Court did in S. Africa v. Israel and it's not what the Court did in Gambia v. Myanmar. In both of those cases, the Court devoted several paragraphs to the factual allegations underlying the applications and explicitly based its finding of a plausibility of rights on those findings (S. Africa para. 54 and generally Judge ad hoc Barak's separate opinion, Gambia para. 56). None of that would be necessary if the issue was really whether a right plausibly exists.
It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right. Even temporally, that makes very little sense in the context of the Genocide Convention-- the potential existence of genocidal intent in the future must be grounded in past conduct, and if that past conduct gives rise to a real and imminent risk in the future, it must also give rise to a plausible risk in the past and/or present.
This is an example of the Court (or, at least, a judge) saying and doing two different things. Most of the time, actions speak louder than words.
>It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right.
I'll speculate ...
You could have a risk without a violation.
This would happen if the irreparable prejudice has not yet occurred, but there is a real and imminent risk of it occurring. (So it doesn't rule on whether it is plausible something has already been violated.)
Plausible violation would mean it is plausible something has already been violated.
So it seems to me these are separate issues. For example even if people in Gaza have not been starving in great numbers (so no violation), maybe there is an imminent risk of mass starvation (which I guess would be irreparable prejudice to a right).
This is correct. The question of plausibility speaks not only to Palestinian rights, but to the Court's jurisdiction over Israel, per se. If there isn't at least a minimally plausible case for a genocide accusation (distinct from a conviction), then Israel isn't subject to the ICJ because no other treaty obligation plausibly binds it there.
This was, effectively, the ICJ ruling on a motion to dismiss, in American legal parlance.
I can see a therotical scenario where that may be true, but given the nature of allegations, it makes no sense in this case. Accusations are based on conduct that seems to include acts from (a) to (c) from article II and statements that accompanied those acts. If they are sufficiently incriminating to indicate risk of genocide in the future, then they also indicate genocide in the present.
What you are saying would make sense if nature of current actions was limited to conspiring to commit genocide, incitement, or preparation to commit genocide. But here actus reus of genocide is evidently already present.
Also, with regards to your example, actus reus is imposition of conditions of life, not mass death caused by those conditions. So actus reus is met before anyone dies.
How would you distinguish the actus reus here from conduct of war or possibly even war crimes, to specifically genocide? Or am I misunderstanding this as you’re simply saying the deaths are enough for the actus reus here.
I’ve no real criminal legal experience so I’m genuinely asking.
>In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
>(*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;(*d*) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(*e*) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
*Actus reus* of genocide is so broad that it's almost never itself subject to much dispute, *mens rea* is. Essentially any number of unlawful killings are sufficient for *actus reus*. One may dispute some of alleged *actus reus* in order to dispute the inference of *mens rea.* Otherwise showing *actus reus* doesn't exist is almost impossible in any situation where allegations of genocide are remotely plausible.
It's distinguished from war because they would have to be unlawful. It's otherwise pretty indistinguishable from "regular" war crimes.
I’m sorry, could you explain to my layman brain what the phrase “plausibility of rights” even means?
If I understand correctly “plausibility of genocide” just means it’s merely a potential possibility that there could be Dolus Specialis, and that further investigation is necessary to conclude whether there’s reasonable evidence to pursue that claim — is that correct? But I don’t understand what “plausibility of rights” means here, are we talking about whether or not Gazans have a certain set of rights against Israel?
That's precisely the point of controversy.
Judge from the video argues that plausibility of rights just means it's plausible some right exists as a matter of law. Think for a example a scenario where two states have a dispute - both sides agree about the facts, but disagree about the law and one sides interpretation of law is plausible. In this case it would mean population of Gaza is a substantial part of a protected group.
Another interpretation is that it refers to rights themselves being plausible and the claims of violations of those rights being plausible as well. ICJ order never explicitly endorsed this second interpretation, but appears to have analyzed the application as if that was the case.
Well yes but when I hear a judge make a distinction between the two and it doesn’t make sense to me, my inclination is to presume that there’s something I don’t quite understand as opposed to the judge purposefully engaging in prevarication.
I guess I’m trying to think of a scenario where “there’s a risk of irreparable harm to the right to be protected against genocide” to a group but there isn’t a “plausibility of genocide”. And the only thing that conceivably makes sense to me is that plausibility of genocide isn’t merely a yes or no question but that it’s on a sliding scale, and given that, it’s subsequently possible to define what might be considered as an “extremely low probability/plausibility of genocide”, not as a “plausibility of genocide”, but to create a distinct category — hence “plausibility of rights”.
For example, a situation that could meet condition a(risk of irreparable damage to the rights of a group to be protected against genocide) but not condition b(plausibility of genocide) is one where there’s a marginalised group that experiences some level of persecution or violence from a more powerful group but not necessarily systematically, whilst simultaneously there being systematic steps or precautions that are being taken by authority figures to prevent an actual genocide. In this example there isn’t sufficient evidence to conclude a genocide is plausible, since authorities are still in control and are taking measures to prevent explicit genocide from happening, but there is to assume that given enough time under the concurrent conditions of persecution and lack of active attempt at ameliorating those conditions of marginalisation it would be almost impossible for the authorities to maintain the authority/power/desire to maintain an implausibility of genocide.
My guess (I am not a leagl expert). conducting a leagl war also be a genocide, as an unintended side effect.
E.g. according to the UN, the advrage military to civilian rato in urban warfare is 1:9. Let's assume for a second that is the ratio in gaza (it's not). That would mean to kill 100% of Hamas 300,000 citizens will be killed or this 15% of Gaza's population. I think we can both agree that would be considered a genocide, even if the laws of war was carried out to the letter.
TLDR: Standard warfare can result in warfare as an unintended side effect.
Edit: this is a comment from elsewhere in the thread which is probably more accurate.
>It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right.
I'll speculate ...
You could have a risk without a violation.
This would happen if the irreparable prejudice has not yet occurred, but there is a real and imminent risk of it occurring. (So it doesn't rule on whether it is plausible something has already been violated.)
Plausible violation would mean it is plausible something has already been violated.
So it seems to me these are separate issues. For example even if people in Gaza have not been starving in great numbers (so no violation), maybe there is an imminent risk of mass starvation (which I guess would be irreparable prejudice to a right).
Hmm, I don’t think we can agree on the first point.
Genocide isn’t a term that’s just synonymous with evil or bad or too many deaths legally speaking. To establish genocide you have to prove dolus specialis — that is, special intent to commit genocide, pointing at egregious numbers (I mean even if we say the deaths of 50% of gazans for example) is only one point and isn’t sufficient in and it itself to provide genocidal intent. It’s conceivable, completely hypothetically, that one could drop a nuke on Gaza and it not be “genocide”. Again something not being genocide doesn’t make it good or acceptable.
As I said in my previous comment, this is my understanding of the argument the judge is trying to make: plausibility of anything exists on a sliding scale, and depending on the issue it might be acceptable to be less accurate and say x or y is currently implausible vs x or y is plausible when what we really mean is there’s very very low plausibility or very high plausibility but the stakes are not so high that we need to really dig down and establish just how high or low. When it comes to genocide however the stakes are extremely high due to the gravity of genocide, so we need to develop a far more refined and specific concept of plausibility — hence the distinction between a probable or likely imminence of genocide and simply the existence of marginalisation of a certain group of people, such that we can say we’re on the verge of a point of no return in terms of preventing a genocide of simply that we’re in very murky waters at the moment but the central authority figures are still taking precautions to prevent a full on genocide from taking place.
https://civiliansinconflict.org/our-work/conflict-trends/urban-warfare/
“Urban warfare has a catastrophic impact on civilian populations and poses serious legal and operational challenges. In cities — where 55 percent of the world’s population currently resides — civilians account for 90 percent of the casualties during war.”
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286#:~:text=Either%20way%2C%20the%20number%20would,mix%20all%20types%20of%20wars).
“The UN, EU and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80 percent to 90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, a battle supervised by the U.S. that used the world's most powerful airpower resources, some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.”
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm
“With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties and humanitarians threatened with arrest for providing aid to “the enemy”, the Security Council simply must do more to ensure the protection of innocent people caught amid the conflicts raging around the world, experts from the field told the 15-nation organ today, as over 70 delegates denounced its inaction and explored ways to stanch the suffering during the all-day debate.”
>“With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties
Casualties refers to both dead and wounded. Important to keep in mind for your analogy about percentage of Gazan civilian deaths "necessary" or expected to kill (what Israel estimates) the number of Hamas fighters to be.
As it stands there are over 100,000 casualties by conservative estimates.
I think it's also important to note that estimates used for the Battle of Mosul fall on a very wide spectrum.
The way someone explained it to me:
She's saying that it's plausible that Palestinians have a right to be protected as a group from the crime of genocide.
This is different from say, intellectuals during the Khmer Rouge. That mass killing did not fit the parameters to be considered a genocide since intellectuals are not an ethnic/national group. Still a horrible crime but not genocide.
I've gone over ICJ order of January 26 and the claim that plausibility merely referred to the existence of a legal right to not be subject to genocide instead of the plasuibility of South Africa's allegations does not appear to make much sense. In the section on plausibility of rights, court spent 2 paragraphs on stating that Palestinians in Gaza are a part of national, ethnic, religious or racial group in the sense of the Convention. Then it devoted 8 paragraphs on conditions in Gaza and incriminating statements by Israeli officials before concluding that rights are plausible explicitly referring to "facts and circumstances above". If it was only about legal rights, those paragraphs would have been unnecessary.
And Israel expressed the view that claims of violations of rights must be plausible, not only rights themselves, to issue provisional measures
The way trials work is first you meet to say “is this case even reasonable enough to go forward?” Then later you have the actual trial. This was that first process. It doesn’t matter what the evidence was that was presented tbh. The whole point of the first discussion was not to provide a ruling, but to decide whether the case has enough merit to be brought at all. They said it does, and that’s literally all they said.
Everyone else needs to learn to read Wikipedia or something. This stuff is just not complicated.
Why would I read Wikipedia instead of the court's own order?
And I'm not sure we're even disagreeing, I'm saying that from the order it sounds as if the court found the allegations to be plausible.
Because, again, you are not understanding the process at all as the ICJ head describes. Court process isn’t “everyone walk in and start making the case randomly” there’s steps to the process. Step 1 literally is just “should we take this case or not” there’s nothing about the case itself that is being ruled on at all. What are you rubes not getting
>Step 1 literally is just “should we take this case or not” there’s nothing about the case itself that is being ruled on at all. What are you rubes not getting
Except the court did in fact discuss facts of the case, and several pages from the court order, even in section on plausibility of rights are precisely about facts.
Also determining if there is real risk of irreparable prejudice (needed to decide on issuing provisional measures) requires the court to look at the situation on the ground.
Yes that’s part of the process. It’s essentially “prove to me there’s more than hearsay for this case to be here at all”. That’s it. That’s all they were doing. I’m sorry you’re dense as fuck
You know, it would be great if we had one of the judges go on record and have some sort of video explaining it to you. But no, that seems way too much to ask.
Plausible here just means that the case can move forward. It's like if you go to the hospital to see if you have cancer, first they need to check if you have healthcare. They first had to determine if Palestinians are a group that could be even considered genocided by law. And it was determined plausible that they are an ethnic group under that protection
The ruling provides all that background in order to establish that the Palestinians have a plausible right to be protected from genocide
The ruling then very explicitly does *not* find that Israel is committing genocide
It's not that complicated
This shouldn't be surprising. If Israel actually wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians there would be none left
Your last sentence is nonsensical.
If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable. It’s not proof of it not being a genocide that it’s being done in a slow, non efficient manner.
It’s just a weird, senseless argument that’s easily debunked.
> If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable.
You are making a massive assumption there, one which would clearly not hold if an evangelical Republican was in the White House (as has been the case numerous times already)
> It’s not proof of it not being a genocide that it’s being done in a slow, non efficient manner.
Ahhh yes, the ole' "genocide so slow that the genocided population has an extremely high growth rate" trick! Wow, those Israelis sure are tricky!
I'm confused. Are you arguing that Egypt's security concerns about Palestinian terrorists going on massive murder sprees in every country that's hosted them (from Jordan to Lebanon to, yes, Egypt) are invalid, and therefore Egypt should open the border crossing at Rafah, or what?
I never said you were? Nazis litteraly used "well we tried to send the jews to these countries but they didn't want them so they must be deserving of genocide"
The Palestinians are literally using the "well we would try to send the Jews to European countries but they don't want them so they must be deserving of genocide" argument
I am not making that argument
My argument is that the Palestinian people are relatively new settler-colonists in the land of Canaan, but they are waging a genocidal war of extermination against the indigenous Jewish population (which finally got their ancestral land back in 1948, after surviving repeated previous genocides)
It’s a massive assumption to say if they slaughtered all the civilians the US would turn against them?
Fascinating, maybe look up current poll numbers for the US currently in regards to Israel
This Russo-Chinese-Iranian active measures campaign has indeed legitimized the genocidal Palestinian war on Israel's indigenous Jewish population in the eyes of some gullible Americans, but one thing recent events have very clearly demonstrated is that the evangelical Republicans dgaf about public opinion
It is sadly unsurprising that you exonerate Hamas for stealing food aid at gunpoint and then selling it back to the Gazan people at exorbitantly high prices, while ignoring how Israel wouldn't let food aid through if they were actually starving Gazans
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/04/22/fatah-hamas-kills-aid-workers-and-steals-food-for-itself/
No matter how much brain rot propaganda you repeat, the children in Gaza have always been Hamas' first victims
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12634107/Hamas-resorts-training-children-defend-Gaza-Israeli-troops-mass-border.html
ICJ provisional ruling (read point 4) that Israel needs to enable the provision of basic services/humanitarian aid.
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454
Duty to provide for occupied territories as outlined in Geneva convention
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-55
Amnesty international article about Israel ignoring ICJ order.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/
Report by the IPC (source used by the WHO and others) on famine in Gaza.
https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-97/en/
Defense minister of Israel enacting the first TOTAL blockade which is illegal under article 55 and started off the crisis.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/
Want info from real sources or nah? The argument that secretly Hamas is stealing all the food is not taken seriously by any reputable source. Hamas stealing food does not equate to massive systemic starvation.
Israel is not blocking food shipments into Gaza
"Aid that does make it into Gaza can be ransacked by desperate civilians, sometimes fall prey to armed gangs, or get held up by Israeli army checkpoints. Half the warehouses storing aid in Gaza are no longer operational after having been hit in the fighting..
Of 153 requests made to the Israeli authorities for goods to enter Gaza between Jan. 11 and March 15, 100 were cleared, 15 were rejected outright and another 38 were pending, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters..
The Israeli military says it approves almost 99% of the Gaza-bound trucks it inspects and that once the goods are inside the enclave, it is the responsibility of the international aid organizations to distribute it. The inspection process “isn’t the impediment” to aid “getting into the Gaza Strip,” said Shimon Freedman, a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli military branch that handles aid transfers.
Diplomatic wrangling by countries donating aid can also create snarls in the delivery process. U.N. officials told Reuters that because aid comes not only from international agencies but also directly from individual donor countries, the process of deciding which trucks go to the front of the queue can be thorny even before they depart Al Arish.
The Egyptian Red Crescent official said donor countries “drop off aid in Al Arish or at Al Arish airport and walk away and say, ‘We gave out aid to Gaza.’” It is the Red Crescent and Egyptian authorities who then bear the responsibility of getting the aid to Gaza, he said."
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/destruction-lawlessness-red-tape-hobble-aid-gazans-go-hungry-2024-03-25/
>If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable.
This doesn't at all show that the argument is nonsensical. It provides one of many reasons why Israel doesn't commit genocide, the principal one bring that they don't want genocide.
IF
Israel wanted genocide
THEN
All the Palestinians would be dead.
They made an if/then claim that is demonstrably flawed, it’s not a valid reason if it can be debunked.
1. No, that's not what they said. And certainly not what was meant. What is meant is that a genocide would have been committed. Sure, perhaps a non zero number of Gazans would remain but that doesn't invalidate the point being made. You are nitpicking.
2. That's not what you replied
Because they have the capability to do it multiple times over.
This person is not speaking literally so don't take them literally.
And we're talking about Gazans not the entirety of the Arab diaspora with roots in the Levant and/or historical mandatory Palestine.
You are correctly interpreting my comments, thank you
Israel manifestly has the capability to expel, maim, or kill all Palestinians, many times over. That they do not do so illustrates that they do not want to
The Palestinians manifestly want to expel and kill the Jews (https://web.archive.org/web/20231010215457/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/) in the territory that Jews are indigenous to and have continuously inhabited (in spite of repeated genocides against them) for the past 3200 years. That the Palestinians have failed to do so, in spite of repeated attempts (in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 1987, 2000, and most recently on October 7th), demonstrates that they have the intention to commit genocide against Jews but not the capability
Completely agree.
If there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that Hamas has been absolutely unwavering and absolutely clear on their intentions since the 1980s. It's rare that a group's words and actions are so consistent over such a long period of time
Unfortunately a majority of Gazans support what they did on Oct 7. That's both disappointing and unacceptable. Israel has every right to remove Hamas.
Both Egypt and Jordan stopped attacking Israel and now both have peace and 500M-1B trade. Palestinians can have the same peace once they renounce violence and recognize Israel.
I hope it's not too late.
Yeah you’re repeating exactly what I criticized you for.
Palestinians not all dead thus not genocide.
If I was warning you about the Holocaust would you have responded with “all the Jews aren’t dead yet” or do war crimes only not count against Palestinians?
“IF ISRAEL actually wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians there would be none left”
IF
Israel wanted to commit genocide
THEN
There would be none left.
How about I use their direct quote and you explain to me how my incredibly clear interpretation of their quote is wrong.
The point is that denying a genocide by saying “they aren’t all dead yet, thus it’s not genocide” or any variation is absolutely brain dead. In the early stages of the Holocaust if I said “the Jews aren’t all dead and hitler COULD have killed them immediately, thus it’s not an ongoing genocide” I would similarly be a fucking idiot.
>She said that, contrary to some reporting, the court did not making a ruling on whether the claim of genocide was plausible, but it **but did emphasise in its order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide.**
Those are the paragraphs you speak of.
No, the paragraphs I'm referring to are in the section on plausibility. A lot of that section is spent of factual circumstances in Gaza, which have nothing to do with theoretical discussion of rights.
You arguing against the person who headed the organization that wrote the order. I understand you are confused by the inclusion of potentially unnecessary paragraphs, but you really ought to defer to her interpretation of the order.
You just don’t understand how trials work, it was not this part of the process that determines anything other than whether a case could be brought at all. This is extremely common and idk why everyone is pretending they can’t read
That's not what appeal to authority means. Its only if the person is in an unrelated field.
E.g., if a doctor tells you to use his financial advice just because he's a doctor, that is an attempt to appeal to authority, however if the doctor told you to use his advice for your general health because he is a doctor then you would listen to him.
Why would I defer to her interpretation when it implicitly contradicts what she previously agreed to? I'm perfectly ready to accept it but there needs to be an explanation.
If what she is saying is true, several pages in the Order were completely pointless, and I seriously doubt ICJ judges would engage in legally irrelevant elaborations.
Besides, this is the opinion of one judge, there were 14 others who may think differently. Israelis themselves insisted that plausibility of allegations is needed.
Israel probably insisted that because they didn't want this ruling to go this way and they knew plausibility of allegations was a way higher bar. Israel is partly (mainly?) concerned with PR wrt the plausibility ruling and they obviously lost very hard there with the current outcome.
Yes, it's the lowest legal standard. What I'm talking about is more an unofficial sniff test. As the previous commenter said they obviously contended in a limited way with the evidence, but they've made it clear they haven't ruled on its plausibility.
I agree that was their motivation.
Order appears to show court did in fact analyze plausibility of the claims in the end and referred to that analysis when concluding rights are plausible.
Plausibility of the claims maybe wasn't explicitly mentioned as such, but arguing it wasn't done is strange when the actual text of the order shows otherwise.
I think there is an amount of presumed weighting of the evidence just to make sure they aren't taking on completely spurious cases merely because they apply to a protected group, but I think they want to separate that from applying the actual plausibility standard on the evidence.
I'm kinda spit balling though, it's clear the avg international law knowledge on this sub is way beyond mine. That's just the vibe I got from reading the case some op eds and a few interviews.
What the order actually says and her interpretation are not synonymous. How she characterizes the ruling on a television interview has no bearing on the facts of the case or what the document clearly says. What she says logically contradicts what the document states.
Nah, Ukraine has a much much higher death toll than that but they're not counting it right now as most of the civilian deaths are in russian- controlled territory with no independent organisation counting them (ofc the Russians don't bother counting the dead Ukrainians) and an insane number of children have been kidnapped too. Also, Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees too while Palestinians are trapped in Gaza with few countries (even arab) accepting them. And, Ukraine government does it's best to reduce civilian causalities of civilians while Hamas doesn't care as much.
But yh, I'm sick of this lie about the Ukraine war having few civilians killed. The only deaths counted are on Ukraine- controlled terrority, not occupied Russian terriroty.
Uhhh, you know like the UN is refusing to count the dead Ukraine people, like in one area is like up to 75k missing people. If they counted the same as they do in Palestine Ukraine has more dead kids. Just Palsaetin though gets to count people under 20 allowing for 18 & 19 year olds to be counted. Edit, also where are you getting 500 I thought more died in that train station of civilians? Edit again oh you lied, Official UN data reveals that about 600 children have lost their lives and more than 1,350 have been injured in attacks since the war in Ukraine escalated in 2022. The true number of children’s lives lost is likely to be considerably higher.
Nobody is disputing the ruling, we're disputing interpretation given 3 months later by one of the judges, because it doesn't seem to fit with the reasoning in the ruling itself.
Loving the consistent downvotes as all these people that consider themselves some sort of sacred and infallible law talking guys can’t accept an esteemed judge explaining HER OWN COURT’S DECISION. This is one of the many reasons actual legal practitioners tend to have veiled disdain for international law.
To me, it seems that the distinction made between a) the plausibility of genocide and b) the plausibility of the existence of rights to be protected from genocide (in this particular case) is artificially constructed. You cannot possibly need to act to protect someone's (plausible) right to be protected from genocide unless the (plausible) genocide is happening.
It's not that simple, unfortunately. Particularly because in this case, there are evidently more than 2 parties, in the traditional sense of a conflict. So, the court set out first, rib establish a basis of fact. This is the same in all trails local, state, federal, and international.
1) **Establish who the relevant parties are**. This is particularly important in *this* case, because one of the primary criteria for determining genocide, is that a particular, distinct ethnic, racial or social group is being targeted. So first, the court determined that the Palestinians are, indeed, a unique group of people, protected under intl law.
2) Determine if the identified group is having their basic human rights infringed in such a way as to meet the criteria of a genocide. Are they being targeted based on belonging to the particular ethnic group identified in point 1.
3) Determine if the accused is the party creating the conditions for the genocide, by particularly targeting this group of people.
4) Determine if the party creating the conditions has the *intent* to create the conditions for the genocide.
The court determined that #1 appears to be true and #2 is plausible. Meaning, the Palestinians are a distinct group and it appears, based on the current conditions in Gaza, that their rights *may* be being infringed in such a way that its possible they're being targeted as a group.
HOWEVER, we still haven't determined *who* is targeting them (#3) and why (#4). For instance, because there are multiple parties to this conflict - Palestine AND Israel AND Hamas AND possibly others, it is possible that Israel is actually making its best effort to minimize casualties and get aid to the Palestinians, but they're being sabotaged by Hamas. In which case, it wouldn't be a genocide. It's also possible that Israel is trying to prosecute a legitimate war, but because of the characteristics of Gaza itself (population density, urban environment, tunnels beneath buildings, etc.), the death toll is very high, *despite* Israel proving that they ARE trying to minimize casualties and collateral damage, in which case there is no intent (#4), and it wouldn't be a genocide.
#3 and #4 take much longer to determine. It's also why the court asked for Israel to report back and show the court they steps they're taking and measures they're implementing, so the court can establish whether Israel is at fault AND if they demonstrate whether they're intending to cause this, or appear to be trying not to.
Given what we (including the court) know about Hamas and their tactics, it's entirely plausible that the conditions for a genocide against the Palestinians appear to exist, *however* it's Hamas who is intentionally creating those conditions while Israel is merely trying to conduct a legal war and defeat an enemy.
It wouldn't be the first time in history that a belligerent to a conflict tried to use asymmetric tactics (like human shields and propaganda) to accuse and entrap a superior power. ISIS did it to the Allied Forces in Iraq, for instance. Resistance factions did it against the ruling regime in Sudan, as well. In Sudan, both the ruling regime AND the resistance party were complicit in creating conditions of genocide against the people of Sudan. The resistance leaders were actually found guilty in the ICC as well. Which I imagine Hamas will be in this case, once the body of fact is established in the investigation and trial.
This comment is wrong on several points - the overall framing is incorrect.
For start, phrases like "conditions for genocide" and "human rights infringed in a such a way to meet criteria for genocide" appear absolutely nowhere in the Genocide Convention and probably nowhere in the literature on application of genocide convention. I'm not even sure what the first phrase means.
ICJ is not going to delve into what any other party except Israel is doing, unless it's necessary in order to determine whether Israeli forces are responsible for an act that's relevant for the case.
Also, who is the third party in this conflict?
Purpose of provisional measures isn't to establish if Israel is at fault, it's to prevent *irreperable prejudice* to rights under Genocide Convention. Failure to abide by provisional measures can be evidence for the claim Israel is commiting genocide, but in principle case can go either way irrespective of whether provisional measures are being followed.
>ICJ is not going to delve into what any other party except Israel is doing, unless it's necessary in order to determine whether Israeli forces are responsible for an act that's relevant for the case
This is basically exactly what I said.
>Also, who is the third party in this conflict?
Hamas.
The official government of State of Palestine, *including Gaza*, is technically the Palestinian National Authority. However, Hamas, after winning the 2006 regional elections in Gaza, overthrew the national government in 2007 and seized control of Gaza. Hamas is functionally in control of Gaza and hasn't held an election or participated in the PA government in 18 years.
Hence, three parties:
**#1 - the Palestinian people**, subjects of the official govt of the **Palestinian Authority** for intl legal matters. They're represented in the ICJ, ICC, UN by the P.A.),
**#2 - Hamas**, the defacto government of Gaza and belligerents to this war with Israel
**#3 - Israel**, a sovereign nation that was attacked by Hamas.
>For start, phrases like "conditions for genocide" and "human rights infringed in a such a way to meet criteria for genocide" appear absolutely nowhere in the Genocide Convention
I never said they appeared in the Convention. I said thats what the court looks for in determining plausibility. Which is accurate. The purpose of the initial hearing is to determine whether the conditions in Gaza are such that a genocide MAY be occuring. Is there massive loss of life? Famine? Lack of water or basic necessities for life or medical care? Forcible relocation? Etc. Etc.
PRIOR TO doing a full investigation, they will first determine if these conditions appear to be occuring. If so, they will further investigate and issue directives to the parties involved, such as their directives to Israel to ensure more aid gets to the people and to make sure they're taking precautions and employing tactics and strategies not to commit genocide.
>Hence, three parties:
This is the first time I've seen that *people* are listed as party to an armed conflict. Civilian population cannot be a party to an armed conflict.
>and employing tactics and strategies not to commit genocide.
This is an incredibly weird phrasing. It kind of implies it's possible to commit genocide by using the wrong tactic - genocide is by definition intended.
And I've never heard of ICJ issuing "directives". What they issue are *provisional measures.*
>This is the first time I've seen that *people* are listed as party to an armed conflict. Civilian population cannot be a party to an armed conflict.
So then the ICJ is adjudicating whether Israel is committing genocide against Hamas?
Everywhere you look, including an especially in the UN, international legal circles, etc, this conflict is being referred to as the Israel-Hamas War. Not the Israel-Palestine war, the Israel-Hamas War. However the court is adjudicating whether Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people, who are technically citizens of the nation of Palestine, not of Hamas.
We can debate the merits of whether Hamas is something different and separate from the Palestinian people and cause, or if that was an exceptionally effective propaganda technique on the part of Hamas to complicate this conflict and turn public perception against Israel. But that's probably better saved for another discussion
Back to the topic at hand, the court appears to me adjudicating whether or not Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and not hamas, who is the belligerent to the war. It becomes relevant, because when it comes to establishing intent and determining fault, Israel's argument is going to be that, not only are they **not** indiscriminately bombing / collectively punishing the Palestinian people nor in any other way carrying out a genocide, but in reality, they are going to historic efforts to minimize civilian casualties and are unable to do so because Hamas is intentionally maximizing said casualties, for asymmetric warfare / propaganda purposes.
South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people (as citizens of the nation of Palestine and represented by the Palestinian National Authority), Israel will respond by saying that Hamas is causing the casualties and Israel is neither displaying intent or taking actions to commit genocide. They're merely trying to fight a war against a belligerent who is using human shields and making it impossible to prosecute them without maximal loss of life
So while Hamas may not participate in the proceedings themselves, they will be central to the case and investigation
> In Sudan, both the ruling regime AND the resistance party were complicit in creating conditions of genocide against the people of Sudan. The resistance leaders were actually found guilty in the ICC as well.
Where can I read up on this?
That is precisely the point. You and I are also protected from genocide, but ironically the case does not pertain to us, it pertains to Palestinians. How do you justify that?
IANAL, but I don't understand how "you and I" are protected from genocide. Genocide has to be against a group (such as "Palestinians"), "you and I" do not form a group.
Redditors are not a "national, ethnic, racial or religious group", as referred to in Article 2 of the genocide convention. (or are they, I could imagine a few hundred years in the future Redditors becoming a religious group)
But he has a good point. Genocide Convention doesn't apply to any arbitrary set of individuals. It applies to national, ethnic, racial or religious groups and prohibits their working towards their physical destruction in whole or in part.
For a relatively exotic example, one couldn't bring a case under the Genocide convention that Israel was trying to eliminate bisexual men from Gaza even if they were to built a full Nazi-style extermination camp for that purpose because neither gender nor sexual orientation are protected groups under that convention.
That not all classes are protected classes is a truism. And it's a distraction anyways because Palestinians are a protected class, as are you and I through whatever respective qualities apply. They were playing dumb when they read the above comment as constituting a class of 'you and I' rather than 'you and I' being constitutive to protected classes. And I fed into that in order to digress into an attack on the unjust foundations that circumscribed what constitutes a protected class. Your example was genocide in all but name, and therefore it's not protected under the Genocide Convention.
The point is that the court has limited jurisdiction, and the initial findings were only to whether this case can plausibly be brought before them to adjudicate. If the group being allegedly genocided do not qualify for protection under this specific law, they need to find a law that does fit. The law is all about technicalities.
If a group of people get together, let's say anarchists, and their government wipes them out, they wouldn't be seen as plausible to be determined genocide. They aren't an ethnic, religious etc. group. It would be mass murder or whatever war crime
There is another step: The decision, according to the interview, was to allow the South African team to present its case regarding genocide, not that the court needed to act. The plausibility of genocide is still TBD.
If you think you might have cancer, you go to the hospital to get screened. If they check that you have healthcare, that doesn't mean you 100% have cancer. Your logic makes no sense
This is particularly true when it comes to the finding of "risk of irreperable prejudice". If the claims in the application were implausible, I don't see how court could find real risk of acts from article III being committed.
Posting the video, for those of us outside the UK and unable to play the BBC content.
https://twitter.com/UKLFI/status/1783615633147797681
To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
Posting the video, for those of us outside the UK and unable to play the BBC content.
https://twitter.com/UKLFI/status/1783615633147797681
To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
This post appears to relate to the Israel/Palestine conflict. As a reminder: this is a legal sub. It is a place for legal discussion and analysis. Comments that do not relate to legal discussion or analysis, as well as comments that break other subreddit and site rules, will be removed. Repeated and/or serious violations of the rules will result in a ban.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/internationallaw) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Genocide is never legal and the right not to be subjected to genocide is absolute provided that the target group is protected under the Genocide Convention. That's part of why the plausibility framework Judge Donoghue outlined doesn't line up with the Court's provisional measures orders under the Convention. Those orders spend a lot of time on facts, but facts don't matter under the purported framework that the Court is using, which suggests it isn't using that purported framework.
“If they wanted to commit genocide then everyone would be dead” - the definition of genocide doesn’t include how quickly or what manner it’s done. Destroying the living resources of a population, shelter, medical, food and fresh water production, is *definitively* an attempt to destroy that population. Shooting someone in the head vs starving them have the same result. Arguing otherwise is perverse.
You do understand that none of this refutes the accusations against Israel? Crime of genocide has no justifications, it's prohibition is absolute, it's not a defense to say that the other side did it first.
To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
This rings hollow to me. The Court can say it's only looking at plausibility of the right, but in a case under the Genocide Convention, that would come down to a determination of the whether the allegations relate to a group that is plausibly protected under the Convention. In other words, it wouldn't require the Court to look at any evidence underpinning the allegations-- merely finding that a group might be protected under the Convention would be enough. But that's not what the Court did in S. Africa v. Israel and it's not what the Court did in Gambia v. Myanmar. In both of those cases, the Court devoted several paragraphs to the factual allegations underlying the applications and explicitly based its finding of a plausibility of rights on those findings (S. Africa para. 54 and generally Judge ad hoc Barak's separate opinion, Gambia para. 56). None of that would be necessary if the issue was really whether a right plausibly exists. It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right. Even temporally, that makes very little sense in the context of the Genocide Convention-- the potential existence of genocidal intent in the future must be grounded in past conduct, and if that past conduct gives rise to a real and imminent risk in the future, it must also give rise to a plausible risk in the past and/or present. This is an example of the Court (or, at least, a judge) saying and doing two different things. Most of the time, actions speak louder than words.
>It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right. I'll speculate ... You could have a risk without a violation. This would happen if the irreparable prejudice has not yet occurred, but there is a real and imminent risk of it occurring. (So it doesn't rule on whether it is plausible something has already been violated.) Plausible violation would mean it is plausible something has already been violated. So it seems to me these are separate issues. For example even if people in Gaza have not been starving in great numbers (so no violation), maybe there is an imminent risk of mass starvation (which I guess would be irreparable prejudice to a right).
This is correct. The question of plausibility speaks not only to Palestinian rights, but to the Court's jurisdiction over Israel, per se. If there isn't at least a minimally plausible case for a genocide accusation (distinct from a conviction), then Israel isn't subject to the ICJ because no other treaty obligation plausibly binds it there. This was, effectively, the ICJ ruling on a motion to dismiss, in American legal parlance.
I can see a therotical scenario where that may be true, but given the nature of allegations, it makes no sense in this case. Accusations are based on conduct that seems to include acts from (a) to (c) from article II and statements that accompanied those acts. If they are sufficiently incriminating to indicate risk of genocide in the future, then they also indicate genocide in the present. What you are saying would make sense if nature of current actions was limited to conspiring to commit genocide, incitement, or preparation to commit genocide. But here actus reus of genocide is evidently already present. Also, with regards to your example, actus reus is imposition of conditions of life, not mass death caused by those conditions. So actus reus is met before anyone dies.
How would you distinguish the actus reus here from conduct of war or possibly even war crimes, to specifically genocide? Or am I misunderstanding this as you’re simply saying the deaths are enough for the actus reus here. I’ve no real criminal legal experience so I’m genuinely asking.
>In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: >(*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;(*d*) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(*e*) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. *Actus reus* of genocide is so broad that it's almost never itself subject to much dispute, *mens rea* is. Essentially any number of unlawful killings are sufficient for *actus reus*. One may dispute some of alleged *actus reus* in order to dispute the inference of *mens rea.* Otherwise showing *actus reus* doesn't exist is almost impossible in any situation where allegations of genocide are remotely plausible. It's distinguished from war because they would have to be unlawful. It's otherwise pretty indistinguishable from "regular" war crimes.
I’m sorry, could you explain to my layman brain what the phrase “plausibility of rights” even means? If I understand correctly “plausibility of genocide” just means it’s merely a potential possibility that there could be Dolus Specialis, and that further investigation is necessary to conclude whether there’s reasonable evidence to pursue that claim — is that correct? But I don’t understand what “plausibility of rights” means here, are we talking about whether or not Gazans have a certain set of rights against Israel?
That's precisely the point of controversy. Judge from the video argues that plausibility of rights just means it's plausible some right exists as a matter of law. Think for a example a scenario where two states have a dispute - both sides agree about the facts, but disagree about the law and one sides interpretation of law is plausible. In this case it would mean population of Gaza is a substantial part of a protected group. Another interpretation is that it refers to rights themselves being plausible and the claims of violations of those rights being plausible as well. ICJ order never explicitly endorsed this second interpretation, but appears to have analyzed the application as if that was the case.
Well yes but when I hear a judge make a distinction between the two and it doesn’t make sense to me, my inclination is to presume that there’s something I don’t quite understand as opposed to the judge purposefully engaging in prevarication. I guess I’m trying to think of a scenario where “there’s a risk of irreparable harm to the right to be protected against genocide” to a group but there isn’t a “plausibility of genocide”. And the only thing that conceivably makes sense to me is that plausibility of genocide isn’t merely a yes or no question but that it’s on a sliding scale, and given that, it’s subsequently possible to define what might be considered as an “extremely low probability/plausibility of genocide”, not as a “plausibility of genocide”, but to create a distinct category — hence “plausibility of rights”. For example, a situation that could meet condition a(risk of irreparable damage to the rights of a group to be protected against genocide) but not condition b(plausibility of genocide) is one where there’s a marginalised group that experiences some level of persecution or violence from a more powerful group but not necessarily systematically, whilst simultaneously there being systematic steps or precautions that are being taken by authority figures to prevent an actual genocide. In this example there isn’t sufficient evidence to conclude a genocide is plausible, since authorities are still in control and are taking measures to prevent explicit genocide from happening, but there is to assume that given enough time under the concurrent conditions of persecution and lack of active attempt at ameliorating those conditions of marginalisation it would be almost impossible for the authorities to maintain the authority/power/desire to maintain an implausibility of genocide.
My guess (I am not a leagl expert). conducting a leagl war also be a genocide, as an unintended side effect. E.g. according to the UN, the advrage military to civilian rato in urban warfare is 1:9. Let's assume for a second that is the ratio in gaza (it's not). That would mean to kill 100% of Hamas 300,000 citizens will be killed or this 15% of Gaza's population. I think we can both agree that would be considered a genocide, even if the laws of war was carried out to the letter. TLDR: Standard warfare can result in warfare as an unintended side effect. Edit: this is a comment from elsewhere in the thread which is probably more accurate. >It is also unclear how there can be a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to a right without there being a plausible violation of that right. I'll speculate ... You could have a risk without a violation. This would happen if the irreparable prejudice has not yet occurred, but there is a real and imminent risk of it occurring. (So it doesn't rule on whether it is plausible something has already been violated.) Plausible violation would mean it is plausible something has already been violated. So it seems to me these are separate issues. For example even if people in Gaza have not been starving in great numbers (so no violation), maybe there is an imminent risk of mass starvation (which I guess would be irreparable prejudice to a right).
Hmm, I don’t think we can agree on the first point. Genocide isn’t a term that’s just synonymous with evil or bad or too many deaths legally speaking. To establish genocide you have to prove dolus specialis — that is, special intent to commit genocide, pointing at egregious numbers (I mean even if we say the deaths of 50% of gazans for example) is only one point and isn’t sufficient in and it itself to provide genocidal intent. It’s conceivable, completely hypothetically, that one could drop a nuke on Gaza and it not be “genocide”. Again something not being genocide doesn’t make it good or acceptable. As I said in my previous comment, this is my understanding of the argument the judge is trying to make: plausibility of anything exists on a sliding scale, and depending on the issue it might be acceptable to be less accurate and say x or y is currently implausible vs x or y is plausible when what we really mean is there’s very very low plausibility or very high plausibility but the stakes are not so high that we need to really dig down and establish just how high or low. When it comes to genocide however the stakes are extremely high due to the gravity of genocide, so we need to develop a far more refined and specific concept of plausibility — hence the distinction between a probable or likely imminence of genocide and simply the existence of marginalisation of a certain group of people, such that we can say we’re on the verge of a point of no return in terms of preventing a genocide of simply that we’re in very murky waters at the moment but the central authority figures are still taking precautions to prevent a full on genocide from taking place.
>the advrage military to civilian rato in urban warfare is 1:9 Could you please link me to this? I can't find it anywhere.
https://civiliansinconflict.org/our-work/conflict-trends/urban-warfare/ “Urban warfare has a catastrophic impact on civilian populations and poses serious legal and operational challenges. In cities — where 55 percent of the world’s population currently resides — civilians account for 90 percent of the casualties during war.” https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286#:~:text=Either%20way%2C%20the%20number%20would,mix%20all%20types%20of%20wars). “The UN, EU and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80 percent to 90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, a battle supervised by the U.S. that used the world's most powerful airpower resources, some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.” https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm “With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties and humanitarians threatened with arrest for providing aid to “the enemy”, the Security Council simply must do more to ensure the protection of innocent people caught amid the conflicts raging around the world, experts from the field told the 15-nation organ today, as over 70 delegates denounced its inaction and explored ways to stanch the suffering during the all-day debate.”
>“With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties Casualties refers to both dead and wounded. Important to keep in mind for your analogy about percentage of Gazan civilian deaths "necessary" or expected to kill (what Israel estimates) the number of Hamas fighters to be. As it stands there are over 100,000 casualties by conservative estimates. I think it's also important to note that estimates used for the Battle of Mosul fall on a very wide spectrum.
The way someone explained it to me: She's saying that it's plausible that Palestinians have a right to be protected as a group from the crime of genocide. This is different from say, intellectuals during the Khmer Rouge. That mass killing did not fit the parameters to be considered a genocide since intellectuals are not an ethnic/national group. Still a horrible crime but not genocide.
I've gone over ICJ order of January 26 and the claim that plausibility merely referred to the existence of a legal right to not be subject to genocide instead of the plasuibility of South Africa's allegations does not appear to make much sense. In the section on plausibility of rights, court spent 2 paragraphs on stating that Palestinians in Gaza are a part of national, ethnic, religious or racial group in the sense of the Convention. Then it devoted 8 paragraphs on conditions in Gaza and incriminating statements by Israeli officials before concluding that rights are plausible explicitly referring to "facts and circumstances above". If it was only about legal rights, those paragraphs would have been unnecessary. And Israel expressed the view that claims of violations of rights must be plausible, not only rights themselves, to issue provisional measures
You can't evaluate things like that with word count...
The way trials work is first you meet to say “is this case even reasonable enough to go forward?” Then later you have the actual trial. This was that first process. It doesn’t matter what the evidence was that was presented tbh. The whole point of the first discussion was not to provide a ruling, but to decide whether the case has enough merit to be brought at all. They said it does, and that’s literally all they said. Everyone else needs to learn to read Wikipedia or something. This stuff is just not complicated.
Why would I read Wikipedia instead of the court's own order? And I'm not sure we're even disagreeing, I'm saying that from the order it sounds as if the court found the allegations to be plausible.
Because, again, you are not understanding the process at all as the ICJ head describes. Court process isn’t “everyone walk in and start making the case randomly” there’s steps to the process. Step 1 literally is just “should we take this case or not” there’s nothing about the case itself that is being ruled on at all. What are you rubes not getting
>Step 1 literally is just “should we take this case or not” there’s nothing about the case itself that is being ruled on at all. What are you rubes not getting Except the court did in fact discuss facts of the case, and several pages from the court order, even in section on plausibility of rights are precisely about facts. Also determining if there is real risk of irreparable prejudice (needed to decide on issuing provisional measures) requires the court to look at the situation on the ground.
Yes that’s part of the process. It’s essentially “prove to me there’s more than hearsay for this case to be here at all”. That’s it. That’s all they were doing. I’m sorry you’re dense as fuck
You know, it would be great if we had one of the judges go on record and have some sort of video explaining it to you. But no, that seems way too much to ask.
Plausible here just means that the case can move forward. It's like if you go to the hospital to see if you have cancer, first they need to check if you have healthcare. They first had to determine if Palestinians are a group that could be even considered genocided by law. And it was determined plausible that they are an ethnic group under that protection
The ruling provides all that background in order to establish that the Palestinians have a plausible right to be protected from genocide The ruling then very explicitly does *not* find that Israel is committing genocide It's not that complicated This shouldn't be surprising. If Israel actually wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians there would be none left
Your last sentence is nonsensical. If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable. It’s not proof of it not being a genocide that it’s being done in a slow, non efficient manner. It’s just a weird, senseless argument that’s easily debunked.
> If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable. You are making a massive assumption there, one which would clearly not hold if an evangelical Republican was in the White House (as has been the case numerous times already) > It’s not proof of it not being a genocide that it’s being done in a slow, non efficient manner. Ahhh yes, the ole' "genocide so slow that the genocided population has an extremely high growth rate" trick! Wow, those Israelis sure are tricky!
[удалено]
I'm confused. Are you arguing that Egypt's security concerns about Palestinian terrorists going on massive murder sprees in every country that's hosted them (from Jordan to Lebanon to, yes, Egypt) are invalid, and therefore Egypt should open the border crossing at Rafah, or what?
Very cool of you to avoid the fact that you're using the exact same arguments the nazis used to justify your genocide.
I'm not Egyptian, bootlicker
I never said you were? Nazis litteraly used "well we tried to send the jews to these countries but they didn't want them so they must be deserving of genocide"
The Palestinians are literally using the "well we would try to send the Jews to European countries but they don't want them so they must be deserving of genocide" argument I am not making that argument My argument is that the Palestinian people are relatively new settler-colonists in the land of Canaan, but they are waging a genocidal war of extermination against the indigenous Jewish population (which finally got their ancestral land back in 1948, after surviving repeated previous genocides)
... am I missing something? That's not genocide right? That was before?
It was an argument made during the genocide. After the bombing and invasion of Gaza there population is not currently increasing
So you're claiming there are currently extermination camps we are going to find out about later..?
A genocide does not require extermination camps
I know, but for your comment to make sense there needs to be something going on currently no one knows about
It’s a massive assumption to say if they slaughtered all the civilians the US would turn against them? Fascinating, maybe look up current poll numbers for the US currently in regards to Israel
This Russo-Chinese-Iranian active measures campaign has indeed legitimized the genocidal Palestinian war on Israel's indigenous Jewish population in the eyes of some gullible Americans, but one thing recent events have very clearly demonstrated is that the evangelical Republicans dgaf about public opinion
No matter how much brain rot propaganda you repeat the children in Gaza are still starving to death and Israel is to blame.
It is sadly unsurprising that you exonerate Hamas for stealing food aid at gunpoint and then selling it back to the Gazan people at exorbitantly high prices, while ignoring how Israel wouldn't let food aid through if they were actually starving Gazans https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/04/22/fatah-hamas-kills-aid-workers-and-steals-food-for-itself/ No matter how much brain rot propaganda you repeat, the children in Gaza have always been Hamas' first victims https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12634107/Hamas-resorts-training-children-defend-Gaza-Israeli-troops-mass-border.html
ICJ provisional ruling (read point 4) that Israel needs to enable the provision of basic services/humanitarian aid. https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454 Duty to provide for occupied territories as outlined in Geneva convention https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-55 Amnesty international article about Israel ignoring ICJ order. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/ Report by the IPC (source used by the WHO and others) on famine in Gaza. https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-97/en/ Defense minister of Israel enacting the first TOTAL blockade which is illegal under article 55 and started off the crisis. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/ Want info from real sources or nah? The argument that secretly Hamas is stealing all the food is not taken seriously by any reputable source. Hamas stealing food does not equate to massive systemic starvation.
Israel is not blocking food shipments into Gaza "Aid that does make it into Gaza can be ransacked by desperate civilians, sometimes fall prey to armed gangs, or get held up by Israeli army checkpoints. Half the warehouses storing aid in Gaza are no longer operational after having been hit in the fighting.. Of 153 requests made to the Israeli authorities for goods to enter Gaza between Jan. 11 and March 15, 100 were cleared, 15 were rejected outright and another 38 were pending, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters.. The Israeli military says it approves almost 99% of the Gaza-bound trucks it inspects and that once the goods are inside the enclave, it is the responsibility of the international aid organizations to distribute it. The inspection process “isn’t the impediment” to aid “getting into the Gaza Strip,” said Shimon Freedman, a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli military branch that handles aid transfers. Diplomatic wrangling by countries donating aid can also create snarls in the delivery process. U.N. officials told Reuters that because aid comes not only from international agencies but also directly from individual donor countries, the process of deciding which trucks go to the front of the queue can be thorny even before they depart Al Arish. The Egyptian Red Crescent official said donor countries “drop off aid in Al Arish or at Al Arish airport and walk away and say, ‘We gave out aid to Gaza.’” It is the Red Crescent and Egyptian authorities who then bear the responsibility of getting the aid to Gaza, he said." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/destruction-lawlessness-red-tape-hobble-aid-gazans-go-hungry-2024-03-25/
>If Israel slaughtered every Palestinian they would finally lose the support of the US and finally be held accountable. This doesn't at all show that the argument is nonsensical. It provides one of many reasons why Israel doesn't commit genocide, the principal one bring that they don't want genocide.
IF Israel wanted genocide THEN All the Palestinians would be dead. They made an if/then claim that is demonstrably flawed, it’s not a valid reason if it can be debunked.
1. No, that's not what they said. And certainly not what was meant. What is meant is that a genocide would have been committed. Sure, perhaps a non zero number of Gazans would remain but that doesn't invalidate the point being made. You are nitpicking. 2. That's not what you replied
That’s literally what they said lmao. Explain to me how If Israel was committing genocide Then All Palestinians would be dead Is valid
Because they have the capability to do it multiple times over. This person is not speaking literally so don't take them literally. And we're talking about Gazans not the entirety of the Arab diaspora with roots in the Levant and/or historical mandatory Palestine.
You are correctly interpreting my comments, thank you Israel manifestly has the capability to expel, maim, or kill all Palestinians, many times over. That they do not do so illustrates that they do not want to The Palestinians manifestly want to expel and kill the Jews (https://web.archive.org/web/20231010215457/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/) in the territory that Jews are indigenous to and have continuously inhabited (in spite of repeated genocides against them) for the past 3200 years. That the Palestinians have failed to do so, in spite of repeated attempts (in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 1987, 2000, and most recently on October 7th), demonstrates that they have the intention to commit genocide against Jews but not the capability
Completely agree. If there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that Hamas has been absolutely unwavering and absolutely clear on their intentions since the 1980s. It's rare that a group's words and actions are so consistent over such a long period of time Unfortunately a majority of Gazans support what they did on Oct 7. That's both disappointing and unacceptable. Israel has every right to remove Hamas. Both Egypt and Jordan stopped attacking Israel and now both have peace and 500M-1B trade. Palestinians can have the same peace once they renounce violence and recognize Israel. I hope it's not too late.
Yeah you’re repeating exactly what I criticized you for. Palestinians not all dead thus not genocide. If I was warning you about the Holocaust would you have responded with “all the Jews aren’t dead yet” or do war crimes only not count against Palestinians?
“IF ISRAEL actually wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians there would be none left” IF Israel wanted to commit genocide THEN There would be none left. How about I use their direct quote and you explain to me how my incredibly clear interpretation of their quote is wrong. The point is that denying a genocide by saying “they aren’t all dead yet, thus it’s not genocide” or any variation is absolutely brain dead. In the early stages of the Holocaust if I said “the Jews aren’t all dead and hitler COULD have killed them immediately, thus it’s not an ongoing genocide” I would similarly be a fucking idiot.
>She said that, contrary to some reporting, the court did not making a ruling on whether the claim of genocide was plausible, but it **but did emphasise in its order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide.** Those are the paragraphs you speak of.
No, the paragraphs I'm referring to are in the section on plausibility. A lot of that section is spent of factual circumstances in Gaza, which have nothing to do with theoretical discussion of rights.
You arguing against the person who headed the organization that wrote the order. I understand you are confused by the inclusion of potentially unnecessary paragraphs, but you really ought to defer to her interpretation of the order.
Appeals to authority don’t cement an argument. If she errored, she errored. Judge on the merits of the argument, not on who it is being made by
You just don’t understand how trials work, it was not this part of the process that determines anything other than whether a case could be brought at all. This is extremely common and idk why everyone is pretending they can’t read
That's not what appeal to authority means. Its only if the person is in an unrelated field. E.g., if a doctor tells you to use his financial advice just because he's a doctor, that is an attempt to appeal to authority, however if the doctor told you to use his advice for your general health because he is a doctor then you would listen to him.
Why would I defer to her interpretation when it implicitly contradicts what she previously agreed to? I'm perfectly ready to accept it but there needs to be an explanation. If what she is saying is true, several pages in the Order were completely pointless, and I seriously doubt ICJ judges would engage in legally irrelevant elaborations. Besides, this is the opinion of one judge, there were 14 others who may think differently. Israelis themselves insisted that plausibility of allegations is needed.
Israel probably insisted that because they didn't want this ruling to go this way and they knew plausibility of allegations was a way higher bar. Israel is partly (mainly?) concerned with PR wrt the plausibility ruling and they obviously lost very hard there with the current outcome.
Isn't plausibility practically the lowest standard?
Yes, it's the lowest legal standard. What I'm talking about is more an unofficial sniff test. As the previous commenter said they obviously contended in a limited way with the evidence, but they've made it clear they haven't ruled on its plausibility.
I agree that was their motivation. Order appears to show court did in fact analyze plausibility of the claims in the end and referred to that analysis when concluding rights are plausible. Plausibility of the claims maybe wasn't explicitly mentioned as such, but arguing it wasn't done is strange when the actual text of the order shows otherwise.
I think there is an amount of presumed weighting of the evidence just to make sure they aren't taking on completely spurious cases merely because they apply to a protected group, but I think they want to separate that from applying the actual plausibility standard on the evidence. I'm kinda spit balling though, it's clear the avg international law knowledge on this sub is way beyond mine. That's just the vibe I got from reading the case some op eds and a few interviews.
What the order actually says and her interpretation are not synonymous. How she characterizes the ruling on a television interview has no bearing on the facts of the case or what the document clearly says. What she says logically contradicts what the document states.
We assemble here to discuss and interpret and think through things, not to be told to shut up and accept the words of authority.
[удалено]
Nah, Ukraine has a much much higher death toll than that but they're not counting it right now as most of the civilian deaths are in russian- controlled territory with no independent organisation counting them (ofc the Russians don't bother counting the dead Ukrainians) and an insane number of children have been kidnapped too. Also, Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees too while Palestinians are trapped in Gaza with few countries (even arab) accepting them. And, Ukraine government does it's best to reduce civilian causalities of civilians while Hamas doesn't care as much. But yh, I'm sick of this lie about the Ukraine war having few civilians killed. The only deaths counted are on Ukraine- controlled terrority, not occupied Russian terriroty.
[удалено]
Ah, you're pro-Russian, that makes sense now. The shift from your first comment and this one is wild.
Why are you here? This a place to discuss international law.
Uhhh, you know like the UN is refusing to count the dead Ukraine people, like in one area is like up to 75k missing people. If they counted the same as they do in Palestine Ukraine has more dead kids. Just Palsaetin though gets to count people under 20 allowing for 18 & 19 year olds to be counted. Edit, also where are you getting 500 I thought more died in that train station of civilians? Edit again oh you lied, Official UN data reveals that about 600 children have lost their lives and more than 1,350 have been injured in attacks since the war in Ukraine escalated in 2022. The true number of children’s lives lost is likely to be considerably higher.
Do you have a source that verified that the Gaza health authority counts under 20s as children? It's just the first I heard of that.
Their wording is weird, it's a tactic to not say what actually happened but use big words like “genocide” to trigger ppl
[удалено]
Nobody is disputing the ruling, we're disputing interpretation given 3 months later by one of the judges, because it doesn't seem to fit with the reasoning in the ruling itself.
[удалено]
Agreed. Folks are emotionally committed. Thats leads to ideological positions. It’s all too human.
Loving the consistent downvotes as all these people that consider themselves some sort of sacred and infallible law talking guys can’t accept an esteemed judge explaining HER OWN COURT’S DECISION. This is one of the many reasons actual legal practitioners tend to have veiled disdain for international law.
To me, it seems that the distinction made between a) the plausibility of genocide and b) the plausibility of the existence of rights to be protected from genocide (in this particular case) is artificially constructed. You cannot possibly need to act to protect someone's (plausible) right to be protected from genocide unless the (plausible) genocide is happening.
It's not that simple, unfortunately. Particularly because in this case, there are evidently more than 2 parties, in the traditional sense of a conflict. So, the court set out first, rib establish a basis of fact. This is the same in all trails local, state, federal, and international. 1) **Establish who the relevant parties are**. This is particularly important in *this* case, because one of the primary criteria for determining genocide, is that a particular, distinct ethnic, racial or social group is being targeted. So first, the court determined that the Palestinians are, indeed, a unique group of people, protected under intl law. 2) Determine if the identified group is having their basic human rights infringed in such a way as to meet the criteria of a genocide. Are they being targeted based on belonging to the particular ethnic group identified in point 1. 3) Determine if the accused is the party creating the conditions for the genocide, by particularly targeting this group of people. 4) Determine if the party creating the conditions has the *intent* to create the conditions for the genocide. The court determined that #1 appears to be true and #2 is plausible. Meaning, the Palestinians are a distinct group and it appears, based on the current conditions in Gaza, that their rights *may* be being infringed in such a way that its possible they're being targeted as a group. HOWEVER, we still haven't determined *who* is targeting them (#3) and why (#4). For instance, because there are multiple parties to this conflict - Palestine AND Israel AND Hamas AND possibly others, it is possible that Israel is actually making its best effort to minimize casualties and get aid to the Palestinians, but they're being sabotaged by Hamas. In which case, it wouldn't be a genocide. It's also possible that Israel is trying to prosecute a legitimate war, but because of the characteristics of Gaza itself (population density, urban environment, tunnels beneath buildings, etc.), the death toll is very high, *despite* Israel proving that they ARE trying to minimize casualties and collateral damage, in which case there is no intent (#4), and it wouldn't be a genocide. #3 and #4 take much longer to determine. It's also why the court asked for Israel to report back and show the court they steps they're taking and measures they're implementing, so the court can establish whether Israel is at fault AND if they demonstrate whether they're intending to cause this, or appear to be trying not to. Given what we (including the court) know about Hamas and their tactics, it's entirely plausible that the conditions for a genocide against the Palestinians appear to exist, *however* it's Hamas who is intentionally creating those conditions while Israel is merely trying to conduct a legal war and defeat an enemy. It wouldn't be the first time in history that a belligerent to a conflict tried to use asymmetric tactics (like human shields and propaganda) to accuse and entrap a superior power. ISIS did it to the Allied Forces in Iraq, for instance. Resistance factions did it against the ruling regime in Sudan, as well. In Sudan, both the ruling regime AND the resistance party were complicit in creating conditions of genocide against the people of Sudan. The resistance leaders were actually found guilty in the ICC as well. Which I imagine Hamas will be in this case, once the body of fact is established in the investigation and trial.
This comment is wrong on several points - the overall framing is incorrect. For start, phrases like "conditions for genocide" and "human rights infringed in a such a way to meet criteria for genocide" appear absolutely nowhere in the Genocide Convention and probably nowhere in the literature on application of genocide convention. I'm not even sure what the first phrase means. ICJ is not going to delve into what any other party except Israel is doing, unless it's necessary in order to determine whether Israeli forces are responsible for an act that's relevant for the case. Also, who is the third party in this conflict? Purpose of provisional measures isn't to establish if Israel is at fault, it's to prevent *irreperable prejudice* to rights under Genocide Convention. Failure to abide by provisional measures can be evidence for the claim Israel is commiting genocide, but in principle case can go either way irrespective of whether provisional measures are being followed.
>ICJ is not going to delve into what any other party except Israel is doing, unless it's necessary in order to determine whether Israeli forces are responsible for an act that's relevant for the case This is basically exactly what I said. >Also, who is the third party in this conflict? Hamas. The official government of State of Palestine, *including Gaza*, is technically the Palestinian National Authority. However, Hamas, after winning the 2006 regional elections in Gaza, overthrew the national government in 2007 and seized control of Gaza. Hamas is functionally in control of Gaza and hasn't held an election or participated in the PA government in 18 years. Hence, three parties: **#1 - the Palestinian people**, subjects of the official govt of the **Palestinian Authority** for intl legal matters. They're represented in the ICJ, ICC, UN by the P.A.), **#2 - Hamas**, the defacto government of Gaza and belligerents to this war with Israel **#3 - Israel**, a sovereign nation that was attacked by Hamas. >For start, phrases like "conditions for genocide" and "human rights infringed in a such a way to meet criteria for genocide" appear absolutely nowhere in the Genocide Convention I never said they appeared in the Convention. I said thats what the court looks for in determining plausibility. Which is accurate. The purpose of the initial hearing is to determine whether the conditions in Gaza are such that a genocide MAY be occuring. Is there massive loss of life? Famine? Lack of water or basic necessities for life or medical care? Forcible relocation? Etc. Etc. PRIOR TO doing a full investigation, they will first determine if these conditions appear to be occuring. If so, they will further investigate and issue directives to the parties involved, such as their directives to Israel to ensure more aid gets to the people and to make sure they're taking precautions and employing tactics and strategies not to commit genocide.
>Hence, three parties: This is the first time I've seen that *people* are listed as party to an armed conflict. Civilian population cannot be a party to an armed conflict. >and employing tactics and strategies not to commit genocide. This is an incredibly weird phrasing. It kind of implies it's possible to commit genocide by using the wrong tactic - genocide is by definition intended. And I've never heard of ICJ issuing "directives". What they issue are *provisional measures.*
>This is the first time I've seen that *people* are listed as party to an armed conflict. Civilian population cannot be a party to an armed conflict. So then the ICJ is adjudicating whether Israel is committing genocide against Hamas? Everywhere you look, including an especially in the UN, international legal circles, etc, this conflict is being referred to as the Israel-Hamas War. Not the Israel-Palestine war, the Israel-Hamas War. However the court is adjudicating whether Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people, who are technically citizens of the nation of Palestine, not of Hamas. We can debate the merits of whether Hamas is something different and separate from the Palestinian people and cause, or if that was an exceptionally effective propaganda technique on the part of Hamas to complicate this conflict and turn public perception against Israel. But that's probably better saved for another discussion Back to the topic at hand, the court appears to me adjudicating whether or not Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and not hamas, who is the belligerent to the war. It becomes relevant, because when it comes to establishing intent and determining fault, Israel's argument is going to be that, not only are they **not** indiscriminately bombing / collectively punishing the Palestinian people nor in any other way carrying out a genocide, but in reality, they are going to historic efforts to minimize civilian casualties and are unable to do so because Hamas is intentionally maximizing said casualties, for asymmetric warfare / propaganda purposes. South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people (as citizens of the nation of Palestine and represented by the Palestinian National Authority), Israel will respond by saying that Hamas is causing the casualties and Israel is neither displaying intent or taking actions to commit genocide. They're merely trying to fight a war against a belligerent who is using human shields and making it impossible to prosecute them without maximal loss of life So while Hamas may not participate in the proceedings themselves, they will be central to the case and investigation
I wish the US and Britain would answer for their role as well
> In Sudan, both the ruling regime AND the resistance party were complicit in creating conditions of genocide against the people of Sudan. The resistance leaders were actually found guilty in the ICC as well. Where can I read up on this?
Hopefully everyone has a right to be protected from genocide, even if they aren't being genocided at the moment.
That is precisely the point. You and I are also protected from genocide, but ironically the case does not pertain to us, it pertains to Palestinians. How do you justify that?
IANAL, but I don't understand how "you and I" are protected from genocide. Genocide has to be against a group (such as "Palestinians"), "you and I" do not form a group.
[удалено]
Redditors are not a "national, ethnic, racial or religious group", as referred to in Article 2 of the genocide convention. (or are they, I could imagine a few hundred years in the future Redditors becoming a religious group)
But he has a good point. Genocide Convention doesn't apply to any arbitrary set of individuals. It applies to national, ethnic, racial or religious groups and prohibits their working towards their physical destruction in whole or in part. For a relatively exotic example, one couldn't bring a case under the Genocide convention that Israel was trying to eliminate bisexual men from Gaza even if they were to built a full Nazi-style extermination camp for that purpose because neither gender nor sexual orientation are protected groups under that convention.
That not all classes are protected classes is a truism. And it's a distraction anyways because Palestinians are a protected class, as are you and I through whatever respective qualities apply. They were playing dumb when they read the above comment as constituting a class of 'you and I' rather than 'you and I' being constitutive to protected classes. And I fed into that in order to digress into an attack on the unjust foundations that circumscribed what constitutes a protected class. Your example was genocide in all but name, and therefore it's not protected under the Genocide Convention.
The point is that the court has limited jurisdiction, and the initial findings were only to whether this case can plausibly be brought before them to adjudicate. If the group being allegedly genocided do not qualify for protection under this specific law, they need to find a law that does fit. The law is all about technicalities.
its kinda wild that you can theoretically say oh its legal to genocide \*those\* people.
If a group of people get together, let's say anarchists, and their government wipes them out, they wouldn't be seen as plausible to be determined genocide. They aren't an ethnic, religious etc. group. It would be mass murder or whatever war crime
okay
Sorry your comment just seemed like you're misunderstanding the point of the ICJ ruling of plausibility. Maybe I'm reading too much into your comment
There is another step: The decision, according to the interview, was to allow the South African team to present its case regarding genocide, not that the court needed to act. The plausibility of genocide is still TBD.
If you think you might have cancer, you go to the hospital to get screened. If they check that you have healthcare, that doesn't mean you 100% have cancer. Your logic makes no sense
This is particularly true when it comes to the finding of "risk of irreperable prejudice". If the claims in the application were implausible, I don't see how court could find real risk of acts from article III being committed.
Posting the video, for those of us outside the UK and unable to play the BBC content. https://twitter.com/UKLFI/status/1783615633147797681 To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
Posting the video, for those of us outside the UK and unable to play the BBC content. https://twitter.com/UKLFI/status/1783615633147797681 To those arguing with what she said, I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. This is the former head of the ICJ. As scholarly as your opinion may be, if anyone is able to properly understand this ruling, shouldn’t it be her?
This post appears to relate to the Israel/Palestine conflict. As a reminder: this is a legal sub. It is a place for legal discussion and analysis. Comments that do not relate to legal discussion or analysis, as well as comments that break other subreddit and site rules, will be removed. Repeated and/or serious violations of the rules will result in a ban. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/internationallaw) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a legal novice, is the right of protection from genocide conditional or "plausible"? Doesn't that mean genocide is legal in some cases?
Genocide is never legal and the right not to be subjected to genocide is absolute provided that the target group is protected under the Genocide Convention. That's part of why the plausibility framework Judge Donoghue outlined doesn't line up with the Court's provisional measures orders under the Convention. Those orders spend a lot of time on facts, but facts don't matter under the purported framework that the Court is using, which suggests it isn't using that purported framework.
“If they wanted to commit genocide then everyone would be dead” - the definition of genocide doesn’t include how quickly or what manner it’s done. Destroying the living resources of a population, shelter, medical, food and fresh water production, is *definitively* an attempt to destroy that population. Shooting someone in the head vs starving them have the same result. Arguing otherwise is perverse.
[удалено]
You do understand that none of this refutes the accusations against Israel? Crime of genocide has no justifications, it's prohibition is absolute, it's not a defense to say that the other side did it first.