ICJ Ruling on Rafah offensive in Gaza

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This thread is for discussion of the recent ICJ ruling directing Israel to cease its Rafah operation, and also the earlier January ruling that one references.
BBC article: Gaza war: ICJ orders Israel to stop Rafah offensive

Specifically,

  1. Whether it will have any direct impact in stopping the Rafah assault (I don’t think so, based on what the Israelis have indicated, as well as the US saying red lines haven’t been crossed),
  2. Whether it will add extra pressure on the US and other Israeli allies (I do think so - the recognition of the State of Palestine by 3 EU countries happened just before the ruling was issued, like they knew which way the wind was blowing)
  3. Whether it will have long-term impacts on other conflicts (I hope it will encourage other countries to stand up against all similar conflicts, but we’ll have to see).

This thread is for a discussion about the effects of the ruling, as outlined above. It is not a discussion about whether the Gaza conflict is an attempt at genocide - the ruling is very clear that it is issued under that framework, that the order to halt the offensive is to prevent actions that fall under the Genocide Convention. Disputing that fact isn’t the point of the thread. The mods have agreed that discussing the applicability of the term itself is off-limits

The definition the ICJ uses for genocide is the same as that used in the Genocide 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.

2

Seems like the starting point might be that “ICJ rulings are final and binding, but the court doesn’t have a mechanism to enforce them.”

3

Yes, that’s a given - they have no enforcement arm. Hence why Israel can choose to just ignore the directive.

But that doesn’t mean ignoring it would necessarily be free of real consequences.

4

Not to muddy things here, but…

Note that this article is dated March, 2022. Has Russia faced any “real consequences” specifically from defying this ruling? Has it halted its invasion?

Do you think the ICJ gains any credibility from rulings like this?

5

I saw an article shortly after the decision came out that Hamas had fired rockets out of Rafah for the first time in months. I wondered if that had happened before the decision, if it would’ve impacted it. I don’t think so since the ICJ issued its ruling due to the risk to Palestinians of a full-scale invasion, which isn’t required to respond to that kind of attack.

Like the January decision, I think it’s pretty reasonable and Israel should heed it. It seems like basically the same thing as the Biden administration is asking for: do whatever you want so long as civilians aren’t at too much risk.

A historic election in South Africa happened today. I wonder if it was a campaign issue for anyone. It sounded like South Africa has a lot of internal problems and foreign policy may not be a priority if a new government forms.

6

The difference here, of course, is that Russia is already not allied/assisted by the West, so there were no real consequences this ruling would have engendered.

Also, that wasn’t done under the Genocide Convention.

It’s better than silence.

Not really. At least, it didn’t come up in my newsfeeds.

It’ll still be a mostly ANC government even if they no longer have an absolute majority. I doubt this policy would change.

7

Moderating:

I want to clarify that

  1. i specifically asked @MrDibble to take this discussion out of the general thread, where i had asked posters to avoid the word “genocide”, and encouraged him to start this thread.
  2. i also asked him to include the definition of genocide he was using for the purpose of this thread, so everyone could be on the same page
  3. and as stated in the OP, “is what Israel doing ‘genocide’?” remains a topic better suited to the pit than to MPSIMS. Please don’t argue that in this thread. We’re going with the ICJ ruling in this thread, and discussing the impact of that ruling.

Thanks.

8

I think we’ll see more actions like this. Whether they will have any impact? Dunno.