There are two parts to that question. The advisory opinion that has since come up in relation to the UN agencies, including UNRWA, is a separate process, but obviously it overlaps with what’s been going on in the genocide case.
You had those provisional measures orders in early 2024. It’s important to emphasize here that the Genocide Convention is the convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. The court decided in this case to issue these provisional orders in relation to that first part about preventing genocide.
It was effectively saying, “We have to reserve judgment on an absolute, definitive decision as to whether and to what extent genocide has been perpetrated, but there’s a serious risk that it is being or could be perpetrated, so we have to make these orders now to try and prevent it.”
The punishment part will come separately because, as with the genocide cases against Serbia, by the time you have a final ICJ judgment, the genocide itself will often no longer be ongoing. By then, it’s a question about reparations, remedies, accountability, and punishment. The punishment part for individuals also comes up in the ICC as well.
But the ICJ’s duty to play its role in trying to prevent genocide gives it the scope to issue these provisional orders. That’s what it did for Israel — orders to stop the Israeli military forces in Gaza from perpetrating genocide, to stop incitement to genocide in the public sphere, and so on. It’s obviously a somewhat absurd situation where you are ordering the state that’s perpetrating the genocide to stop its own officials or its own forces from perpetrating genocide.
The ICJ’s duty to play its role in trying to prevent genocide gives it the scope to issue these provisional orders.
The May 2024 order went beyond specifically ordering Israel to refrain from any acts of genocide in Gaza or incitement to genocide in the public sphere. It also said that in order to be…
Auteur: John Reynolds
