Context:

  • The recent two­day proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) between South Africa and Israel received global attention.
  • South Africa had moved to the ICJ in December 2023, invoking the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 against Israel.
  • It accused Israel of committing genocide during its ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
  • South Africa has requested the indication of provisional measures to stop the genocide.

About ICJ jurisdiction:

  • It is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
  • The statute by which it was created makes it clear that only states may be parties in cases before the Court.
  • Both South Africa and Israel are signatories to the Genocide Convention of 1948 and South Africa invoked the same against Israel.
  • Provisional measures are interim rulings of the ICJ which are aimed at preventing either party from doing irreparable harm to the main case.

About Genocide Convention:

  • The Genocide Convention, 1948, was the first human rights treaty to be which was adopted by the UN General Assembly.
  • It primarily rose from a commitment to ‘never again’ allow mass killing of people such as the Holocaust.
  • South Africa’s case is based upon Article II which says that genocide means acts such as killing members of a national, racial, ethnic or religious group; causing serious bodily and mental harm to the members of the group; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
  • South Africa also accused Israel of causing hunger, dehydration, and starvation in Gaza by impeding sufficient humanitarian assistance, cutting off water, food, fuel, and electricity, and failing to provide shelter or sanitation to Palestinians in Gaza, including its 1.9 million internally displaced people.
  • South Africa put the death toll at 23,000 of which 70% being women and children.