the, the heroes from i'll just on the go and need tonight out is there is only mobile app. is that the, this is where we just fix allies from out is there is a mobile app available in your favorites apps to just set for it and typed on a new app from out to 0 new at you think is it the israel has presented? it's defense at the international court of justice office, south africa argued it's committing genocide in gaza. is noise say the case is a distortion of the truth, but did they make a compelling argument and what will come out of this unprecedented case? this is inside story, the

hello and welcome to the program. i'm for the back to bolt a 2 day, probably carrying of south africa's genocide case against israel at the international court of justice has concluded. south africa laid out a list of genocide acts by israel on the 1st day of hearing on thursday, while israel or defend itself on friday. now the quote has begun deliberations. it will decide whether the south africa is case is strong enough to issue a provisional measure to stop these really military's attacks on gaza. so what's the likely outcome of this case? and when it and the suffering of palestinians will get to our guests in just a moment. but 1st this report from echo, so i'm sharif. none of these atrocities. she smiled again. it's blistering, a tap on what is called a destructive case bus of africa. but if it has been acts that may be characterized

as genocide or, and then i have been prep perpetrated against israel cross in a 3 a long session is when slow is all due, the bones also began after the most attack on through until the 7th. and as well as of right to defend itself, they rejected the accusation as well as military operation and gall. so they say is in that eliminating him off and security the release of kept his amounts to genocide. the genocide convention was a solemn promise made to the jewish people and to all peoples of never again. the applicant in effect, invites the court to betray that problems. if the term genocide can be so diminished in the way that it advocates if provisional measures can be triggered in the way that it suggests, the convention becomes an aggressive charge. it will reward indeed encourage the

terrace to hide behind civilians. as well as representative says, the quote has no jurisdiction or the complaints brought by. so that's what the, because they relate to the laws of conflict and not genocide to the court like supreme effect. you jurisdiction on 1st the sabbatical argued the lots ki, king of siblings, mos expulsion and displacement of palestinians. and inciting, statements made by separate is rarely does all constitute genocide and show proof intent. it follow the case in december, arguing that is around violated the 1948 genocide convention of the aerial and ground offensive and also has more than $23000.00 posting. and so for most of whom women and children, the figure was released by the palestinian health ministry. had been questioned by these rally team. but said that with those lawyers indicated as well as defense,

did not prove its case. i don't think that it was compelling to do it, but any of the issues that we put forward to the quote yesterday, the, we said, you know, the argument without permission and typically i'm arguing that statements from c mean need is getting from and this is the peak and it's public freedom of speech in the context of, of a systemic virus is something that be fine to start machine one. so that for to, as well, i'll do the cases in post. hosting and support is vanita sign. first of all, side, south africa as long advocated for the palestinian cause, and several countries have backed its case against as well. the, the telephone itself, humans in cold, would not forge my most palestinians in gaza. dozens, list to being killed in is really strikes. i'm from the operations at the time of

the hearing, for a full judgment, determining whether is well, has committed genocide in casa, could take years for the i, c, j to determine the cold can issue and internal measures in the meantime, ordering as well to hold it to task in gaza, let me put some settings for inside story. the less now bring in all guessing cape town, kathy powell, associate professor in public law at the university of cape town and a stumble. we have house on been him run a board member for law for palestine, a non profit, human rights organization, which records developments related to palestine and international law. and in dublin, michael becka, assistant professor of international human rights law at trinity college, dublin, and a former staff are at the international court of justice. i one welcome to you all . thank you very much for joining us on inside story. so we're going to be for

focusing today on some of these really defense arguments before we discuss the likely outcome of this case at the i c j. how son, let me start with you. israel brought the best legal minds to the hague, but did they bring the best arguments? what was it about the defense that struck you the most? um so to give some general preliminary examination to say or observation about the arguments i think is that your defense was in a very bad difficult situation. the defending i'm in different type of case substantively i think is what you offer no substantive case substantively. there was nothing or close to nothing offered by the is there any defense? however, there was a great deal of contemplation, a great deal of focus on procedural law, on jurisdiction on the procedures on the technicalities in order to prevent any

compensation of the substance. since the substance has been very clearly portrayed by south africa, south africa has relied on international shows of the you and the other, the other organizations, doctors without borders, so on, so forth. that's 11. opposite of ration that i, that struck me the most, which was not to, to the unexpected book, to be on another, to be honest, more than just opposite of ation. that they had the about the, is there any defensive study is that it was somehow softly appealing to the personal and political perceived inclination of the judges, which is, which is something that made me very uncomfortable, to be honest. okay. the, we understand that the, the, the i, c, g and, or the dimension ball clause is a mixture of law and politics. this is something that any legal practitioner knows by how like, this is something that is very evident. international law is not the same like domestic law, the much more complications. however,

as far as the icy gene is concerned, it's the most prestigious courts. it's the judicial organ. uh, okay, not the nations. it has proved to be quite professional. i would say in the we, it deals with many issues. however, i hope this case we won't be an exception in this particular the good. okay. before we jump into any conclusions, i think this case offers the new elements into the way that we see genocide trying to lead legal. okay. and we'll be picking picking up some of the, the, the arguments and, and discussing them in more detail. let me get my goal is general overview. first of israel's defense did is really in your view, michael. make a compelling argument. in response to a south africa's genocide case wasn't able to provide any solid arguments on the basis of fact and law. it's very important to understand what was happening in this hearing because this was a hearing on the overall merits of the case. and the overall allegations that south

africa is making under the genocide convention. this was a hearing specifically focused on whether or not south africa has satisfied the requirements to convince the court to issue these provisional measures. so israel's task yesterday, it was not only to layout is a overall rejection of south africa's claims, but it had to specifically um try to rebuttal the points that are specific to provisional measures. and where i thought israel was most effective was to make the case very clearly that it wouldn't be problematic. or the courts to extend to south africa's request for a complete and immediate suspension of military operations in got israel's argument here was that it continues to face a very serious, ongoing threat from a moss and the quarter to get what it is real in a position where it simply cannot defend itself so that it goes less to whether or

not the courts should indicate professional measures and more to the question of exactly what those measures should be. so on that specific point i thought is real probably did what it needed to do, but it's really so they were the is my twice about hundreds. where do you sorry are and where do you think they were in effective in their argument? well, i think the hearing yesterday really brought to a far what's going to be a major issue with the case. and that was gap between our perceived gap, between what israel says it's doing and what all the evidence emerging from what's happening on the ground seems to tell us which seems to tell us a very different story. so is there some reiterated in the hearing that it takes international military a lot of very seriously, and it does everything that it can to avoid civilian casualties while fighting and editing a boss that will follow international law at every opportunity. and israel is doing

everything it can to deliver to monitoring aid. but those assertions are very difficult to reconcile with the wide spread reports of yeah. and what was happening in the ground. so indeed indeed, kathy, let me bring you into the conversation. the 1st argument that israel fundamentally made was that file file for guy is the legal arm of her mice. and that therefore they have no credibility in making this case to the i c j. do you think they offered any legitimate evidence that south africa is operating as approx proxy of how much as the claim? and what did you thought was effective and in effective 8 in the arguments they presented in the claim that south africa is acting as an eagle. almost her most is basically irrelevant. even if it were true, even if it's, if it's, if south africa, southern taking orders from us,

what the court has to decide is the merits of the coast and south africa brings. so the figures of state it has a right under the genocide convention to bring this case accusing it of bias is not really getting argument very for the we need to apply the new rather than christian . my my to is of the state bringing the case. so that, that argument was just a bit irritating her to be frank, it's a red herring. i'm the most effective part of israel's argument. i agree with michael at the, the defense specifically about provisional measures was very nuanced and careful on occasionally compelling. um, it was also a producer, unexpected a swim that spoke about the strips of south africa and it can't israel had taken to sort out the dispute between the 2 countries. yeah. call and comment on which side would start to be correct because i don't know what steps were taken, but if it is true that south africa,

any fit to make no attempts to get israel to respond to it's on it's complaints about israel to allegedly genocidal acts that may have a bearing on whether the cortez jurisdiction at all, even if it gives the court to kind of a back door if it wants to georgia the issue entirely. but i think what ended up being the most pressing issue substantively is how we deal with the relationship between self defense interested in the firm and but saw the african and and is really advocates played with this issue. and i think it's an interesting one to explore. okay, before i bring a house on it, back into the conversation to ask you about the question of genocide or intent tests on kathy, let me just pick up on what you, you said there about the question of jurisdiction is read all doing that, that south africa that, that south africa, south africa did not make interactions with it, that they had the opportunity to sold the dispute. does the law requires that they

sold the dispute before taking it to the international court of justice. it's requires that the 10th to resolve it. so what's the genocide convention says is that disputes under the convention that can be referred to the i c j and the cash flow of the i, c j is quite particular about what the word dispute means. and in particular, it requires some form of engagement between the 2 parties. it does say that because to the i see jen, so that africa relied on this, that a dispute will result when one states is x and the other states is the opposite of the case. so the i, c, j has also emphasized that there's going to be some interaction between the 2 states on that disagreement. and it's possible that south africa wasn't careful enough on this step. i simply con on so that on the fact, okay, how fun on the question of genocidal intent to these really said there is no

genocidal intent. and that the statements made by is really political military leaders. aust, simply rhetorical and that we shouldn't ascribe them any important that there's no evidence basically that there, there is genocidal intent from from israel. yeah. your thoughts about this argument and what do you think could undermine this claim? i thought i would be better happy to comment to on the issue of self defense as well. that one's both of us could come and think on the shoulder. and because i think it's a pretty important discussion to have for the professional measures in particular. but i already got the intent, the question of benefiting it, whether it has provided the special ed specific special intent to destroyed experience or the product of the group and took an order in part of the one we put in this one. historically speaking through the previous case law through the jurisprudence of the cost as well as the differentiating on the statements of that

either. but that was not the only way for speaking of the statements in south africa did documents some quite good, well documented sources of a incidence of inciting. however, it could have been but the way better because it has had an extreme unrestrained company in the side of it. and we in the field by this time have relieved few days before the hitting a database of $500.00 plus statement. decide that the statements by the leader, the chain of command, the, the, the, the, what cabinet, the, the, the, the expanded them in a cabinet, the canister, the army soldiers, the former auto and soldiers. the heads of the intelligence bodies only talking about the joints of the seats. no, someone within me, okay. but these are not the ones they making the decision about this one. okay. what about the punishment that south africa spoke out of? what about the prevention? that's also what it spoke about. so as far as the statements are provided,

i think there is no, i mean the other genocide of q that has been well documented like this one in terms of inter, that's one. and that would be the, i think i'll just, it'll be covering that database that we have published you did because that's one thing. another thing with regards to intent is that and that is not just about the statements. like, why are we expecting that everyone who wants to commit genocide, we're going to say, hey guys, i'm committed genocide, but also the usual input on that was very clearly stated in different type of those, including the, that you was not the, on the actual, the end product like when you block the water electricity, when you destroyed the health care system for south africa, documented in 11 bunch of those because the function, when you decide culture like the influence spends instead of an option that we could discuss better than including ethnic cleansing, which is very uh, excluded from this because of discussion i, i believe it should be included to the customer and to you we, we yeah indeed, there are a lot of other issues, of course that need to be included by michael. let me get your thoughts briefly about genocidal intent before i ask you about germany and its actions. wanting to

support this case against israel, wanting to support his route at the i. c. j on the question of genocidal intent. first of all, how direct and clear does genocidal intent have to be genocide, all attached remains very difficult to prove even in situations, but we have might have abundant evidence of atrocities or where it's very clear that other types of international law violations are taking place. so it's a, it's entirely true that in this case we have the unusual circumstance of this body of evidence of direct statements that south africa has pointed to that couldn't be read as expressing directly genocidal intent. but that's going to be fiercely contest it is really we'll come back and explain why at least some of those very problematic statements have been misunderstood or taken out of context or can be attributed to the stage. but that's a big part of the case. but it will have to be connect connected exactly. as i said

to that on the ground, evidence from which genocide don't intend to can be inferred. the difficulty there is that if you're going to infer tennis island change from contextual or circumstantial evidence, this has to be the only inference that can be arrived. that's the course test, and that means that any time you have allegations of genocide in the context of armed conflict or counter terrorism, it becomes even more difficult to meet that very high threshold. but that's at the merits. that's not what south africa had to show at this stage of the case. in germany, michael, let me ask you about jimmy. they've announced that they would speak in israel's defense as a 3rd party, a d i. c. j denying charges. that is what i was committing, genocide in guys a how much weight will this adds to his rose defense? all right, so any party to the genocide convention under a particular procedure on that. and as i'm can come in to the case, as a non party intervene or later terminated,

said they're going to do that. and that they are going to offer their interpretation of the convention and support of israel's position that can sometimes add a legal value to the case depending on what the state comes in and says. but what's really interesting about germany's intervention here is that germany, along with a handful of other states, also recently interested me in a different genocide convention case in front of the court. that's the case that the gambia has brought against me, m r. mm. and that declaration is already in front of the court and sense for us. germany's position how various provisions of the genocide convention should be interpreted. and in particular, that is very important question of genocidal intent where germany and other states essentially urging the course to take what i would describe as a slightly less restrictive approach to how you reach that standard. okay, kathy, your thoughts about gemini saying that it would speak and israel's defense. do you

think this will hurt or, or help israel in his defense? it's going to depend entirely on the strength of the argument that it brings. but i'm interested to hear from michael that germany has already of motivated for a more generous interpretation of the genocide convention, which is the very thing you sort of is arguing against in this case. um, i think that a lot of this is gonna boil down to the genocide intent and it's going to boil down to where the general genocidal intent defects negates the kind of self defense. because that is the argument that south africa made on thursday that even if, well, if that was, it wasn't about self defense. specifically if it's about whether the lose of oil being complied was for low safety. even if israel is complying with some boys of war. if it is doing so with your the size of a content it, it has no excuse it's we've got genocide and there is no justification for the down side. yeah, kathy, for the moment the court again,

just to clarify for of yours is not deciding on the question of genocidal intent. it's going to be voting on the provisional measures, right? south africa has requested that israel or suspended to military operations. and which should know in a few weeks, i guess about the provisional measures. now my question is, even if the court rules in favor of the provisional measures, it doesn't have its own enforcement mechanism. we know, for example, that the court ordered russia to seize its military operations against ukraine, but that didn't happen. right. so what does this case achieve? ultimately, these provisional measures, if the court ruled in favor of the provisional measures, will it make any difference? and i will answer that, but may just quickly point out the genocidal intent remains relevant. even now you can tell the forget has to make a prima fuck here because for, for genocide, so where the genocide and self defense kind of feature the ultimate is important.

even though, but on your question of enforcement. yeah, no, your, your contract the i c j doesn't have its own police force. the only institution is cover. it can rely on if a state refuses to comply with it is the security council. and we know because the united states is a permanent member with future paul on the security council that the security council is not going to do anything either. so the, the force of provisional measures from the i, c j is going to be model is going to fit most israel's model standing in the global community because it's in order to issue any provisional measures, no matter how weak it will have made or preliminary finding that there is a prima for q a case that is or is committing genocide and that in itself is enough to effect is also negotiation with other parties in this concept. i think we must also bear in mind that israel has started to allow a humanitarian aid in his thoughts or to claim that it's abiding with the jo,

has thought of to be a lot more careful with civilians instead of hospitals. most of it in the wake of south africa bringing this case. so in a way, even before the provisional measures, a hand of the don, assuming that you get hand to done, the case has already made a difference. it hasn't stopped the conflict and it's mike not re my thought, good provisional measures for a ceasefire, but we have already got israel having to answer in a public forum for in particular, the worst of the genocide will statements that south africa identified on thursday . it has on do you agree with kathy that the case has already made a difference? even if we, we don't know what the court will vote on the provisional measures yet. now we're discussing something about television images. and as michael said in the beginning provision, imagines, i'm not what's being discussed in the healing more a ceasefire somehow. i mean, that's not the language of the south african application, but that's what could be in for the probation to measure the intended purpose is to

stop the war. yeah. feeling, speeding to advance, the privilege and measures would really put the whole international law. it wouldn't bring the whole intention to get a system to try and that's just as right. but now about the issue of enforced, i'm going to be able to jump back over the back. we know that is what you know, the long tracking break or not suspecting any course, but maybe this is the 1st time to accept the agreed to appear before the car because of the serious nature of the situation. i mean the accusations against them, but we know that they haven't respected any divisions by the unit and machinations to get at the council general assembly, the advisor to open the end of this very course and to even dismiss the icpc previously. i guess some of the investigation, we know that is what you would not expect. however, many of its allies were provided coverage provided cover. the military, the financial media cover, the more on a couple of some how far is we have to continue with the consent about being

involved in such a case that has been decided upon by the for canada. it might be like we see the kind of get canadian statements while rejecting the south african cleans who could not make any and then you get this going to come into the court. the same applies for the companies with the same applies for the u. k. a who do i against to the against which the court judge, the ones that this might not be the case for a, for israel and some of its allies. but for the majority, it was the case. and in fact, i know with the depression i've been to active. okay, michael, your thoughts? what do you think is likely to be the outcome of this case where a provisional measures be issued and what will be, you know, the fact that impacts for, for palestinians and gaza? i think it is likely that the car will, will issue the provisional measures. but it's really important to understand that the court isn't restricted by what south africa has asked for executive. they don't have to say just yes or no to the different require south africa has made was, are limited to this point about cc military operations. i think the car will want

to address the military operations in some way, but we'll need to come up with some other formulation. maybe something along the lines of israel needs to ensure that and continuing military operations are in compliance with it's other obligations under international law, including the genocide convention. and i think there will be other provisional measures directed at this specific question of ensure. and that is real dozens, impede, or indeed facilitates a delivery of the necessary and effective amount of turn assistance. there are other measures as well that might involve preservation of evidence. for example, in terms of enforcement. what kathy is that is exactly right. in theory, if you go to the security call of, of the security cost is actually never really involved in enforcing nice to do decisions. the value of whatever the court decides here is that other states can then draw on that to try to increase the diplomatic pressure on israel to change

its conduct in various way. and the last point would be that even if the serial comes out and says we does, of all the i to j is sadly reject this decision. what is realist as a publicly may not align? and carly with israel is doing behind the scenes. oh crap is exactly what we think the fact of the case, you know, be brought as already produced, some offense. okay, the same can be set whenever the court decides. thank you so much for very insightful, very informative discussion. thank you. have fun. been in ron kathy powell, michael becca, thank you. so all 3 of you and i thank you as well for watching. you can always watch this program again any time by visiting our website at alger 0 dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page at facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. and of course you can join the conversation on x. i'll handle is that a j inside story from me for the back to the whole team having to hi, thanks for watching. bye for now. the

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