Representatives of nine Global South countries convened in the Hague last Friday to launch a coalition that will apply collective pressure on Israel over its gross violations of international law.
The founding members of the Hague Group include the governments of Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. Their initiative aims to establish a common platform to enforce “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures,” including sanctions, in retaliation for the Israeli state’s fifteen-month-long invasion of Gaza, its decades-old occupation of the West Bank, and its blocking of the creation of a Palestinian state.
“This is a group for collective action. Collective action at the national level, collective action at the international level, and collective action at the multilateral level,” said Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla of the Progressive International, which helped organize the coalition, at the January 31 launch event. “The Hague Group aims to build a bulwark to defend international law.”
The group hopes that other states could be willing to join their initiative, which seeks to defend and act upon the rulings against Israel and its political authorities by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They expect to make inroads among the vast majority of Global South nations that voted in favor of the United Nations General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and its latest war in Gaza. Figures from left-wing parties in Europe, such as France Insoumise, Ireland’s Sinn Féin, and the Workers’ Party of Belgium, also attended the launch.
Two weeks into the January 19 cease-fire in…
Auteur: Harrison Stetler
