{"id":20785,"date":"2025-02-26T09:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T15:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sensorialsunsets.com\/?p=20785"},"modified":"2025-02-26T09:39:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T15:39:18","slug":"gaza-israel-regarding-the-request-for-intervention-presented-by-belize-before-the-international-court-of-justice-icj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sensorialsunsets.com\/en\/gaza-israel-regarding-the-request-for-intervention-presented-by-belize-before-the-international-court-of-justice-icj\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza \/ Israel: regarding the request for intervention presented by Belize before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gaza \/ Israel: regarding the request for intervention presented by Belize before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Nicolas Boeglin, Professor of Public International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Costa Rica (UCR). Contact: nboeglin(a)gmail.com<\/p>\n\n

“Lo que est\u00e1 ocurriendo en Gaza no es una operaci\u00f3n militar, es una agresi\u00f3n a gran escala contra nuestro pueblo. Son masacres contra civiles inocentes. Nada en el derecho natural ni en el derecho internacional permite atacar a civiles y perpetrar contra ellos ataques tan indiscriminados y b\u00e1rbaros\u00a0 \/\u00a0\u00a0What is happening in Gaza is not a military operation, it is a full-scale assault against our people. It is massacres against innocent civilians. Nothing in natural law or international law allows for the targeting of civilians and such indiscriminate, barbaric attacks against them<\/strong><\/em>” .\u00a0 Intervenci\u00f3n del representante de Palestina ante el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas, en su sesi\u00f3n del 16 de octubre del 2023 (v\u00e9ase acta\u00a0S\/PV\/9439<\/a><\/strong>, en p\u00e1gina 9)\u00a0 \/\u00a0\u00a0Statement by the representative of Palestine to the United Nations Security Council, at its meeting on 16 October 2023 (see verbatim\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0S\/PV\/9439<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0at page 9<\/strong>)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

As an introduction<\/strong><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n

On January 30, Belize formally requested international justice to intervene in support of South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel filed on December 30, 2023 for genocide in text<\/a> of the request for intervention). Previously, Cuba<\/a><\/strong> made a similar request (January 10), as did Ireland<\/a><\/strong> (January 6), bringing to three the number of states in the month of January 2025 alone that have submitted requests for intervention to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in support of the South African lawsuit against Israel: a previously unobserved occurrence in the history of international justice for states not party to a dispute.<\/p>\n\n

It is possible that these three requests are related to the discursive drift of the new occupant of the White House in his staunch defense of Israel during the US electoral contest, and that he seems to want to materialize from his official entry into office on January 20, accompanying this drift of senseless and extremely dangerous statements.<\/p>\n\n

It should be remembered that Belize chose to break all official relations with Israel in November 2023, preceded by Bolivia (October 2023), and followed by Colombia (May 2024): three decisions taken in repudiation of Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate military actions in Gaza against Palestinian civilians that began on the evening of October 7, 2023. In this <\/a><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

This is the first time that Belize has filed a request of this nature in an ICJ dispute. And it is the third time in its existence as a State that Belize has appeared in a contentious case, its first experience being the joint request made with Guatemala for border delimitation in 2008 (see text<\/a><\/strong>), both pending resolution.<\/p>\n\n

This February 4th, this time within the framework of the advisory procedure, the ICJ authorized the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to participate in the proceedings initiated in December 2024 on Israel’s obligations as a United Nations Member State with respect to the United Nations humanitarian agencies working in the occupied Palestinian territory and with Palestinian refugees since 1947 (see ICJ press release at s<\/a><\/strong>). On February 7, the League of Arab States was also authorized by the ICJ to participate in these proceedings (see the official ICJ communiqu\u00e9 at \u00e9<\/a>s<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

Some recent occurrences in the United States<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

On February 7, another international court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), rejected the sanctions against it adopted by the United States on the same date for investigating Israel and its military actions in Gaza since the evening of October 7 (see official statement<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n

This is an unprecedented measure against ICC personnel that shows the total loss of credibility of the United States in matters of international criminal justice, as denounced by Amnesty International in its statement, in which it states that \u201cThe US government’s decision to impose sanctions on the ICC is a serious blow to the international criminal justice system. The US government’s decision to impose sanctions on the ICC is a serious blow to the international criminal justice system. org\/en\/latest\/news\/2025\/02\/usa-sanctions-against-international-criminal-court-betray-international-justice-system\/\u201c>statement, as did Human Rights Watch<\/em> (HRW) in another press release<\/a><\/strong>. Indeed, since 1945, the international community has always sought to establish mechanisms that allow those responsible for serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law to be held accountable for their actions from an individual criminal point of view: the United States considers that, in the case of Israel, this founding principle of the United Nations and of international human rights law and international humanitarian law should no longer apply.<\/p>\n\n

A large group of States rejected these sanctions in a statement that can be read at this link<\/a><\/strong> of Spanish diplomacy. Hungary and the Czech Republic do not appear in this group. On the Latin American side, Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and Paraguay do not appear in this group, and in the following lines we will explain the reasons why Argentina and Paraguay are silent and distant from other States when it comes to Israel, not without already hinting that the relations between Israel and El Salvador and between Israel and Ecuador both deserve a detailed investigation.<\/h5>\n\n

The decision to sanction ICC personnel for investigating and seeking to prosecute two senior Israeli officials should come as no surprise, nor should the fact that the United States will, as of January 20, 2025, use all means at its disposal to isolate South Africa and sanction it with a single purpose: the withdrawal of the lawsuit filed before the ICJ against Israel in December 2023.<\/p>\n\n

Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and international justice<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

For our esteemed readers who are following the evolution of the situation in Gaza in the light of the different rules that prevail in public international law, it is appropriate to point out a few things regarding the ceasefire announced on January 15th between Israel and Hamas. It should be noted from the outset that this provisional ceasefire in no way affects the legal actions brought against Israel before various judicial bodies.<\/p>\n\n

Negotiated between Israel and Hamas, this agreement was put into effect with the first exchange of three Israeli hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners, in the presence of representatives and vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and constitutes an important truce reached by Israel and Hamas, thanks to the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the United States: both for Palestinian families in Gaza, bombarded incessantly since the evening of October 7, 2023, and for Israeli society, which can finally reunite families with their loved ones after an exhausting wait. A second exchange of this kind took place on the weekend of January 25\/26, a third on the weekend of February 1\/2, 2025, a fourth this weekend of the 8\/9, and more will follow if this truce is not broken. Incidentally, this momentary truce should also lead us, as Israeli society, to reflect on the very peculiar way in which its highest authorities responded to the attack suffered on October 7, 2023. The report<\/a><\/strong> on Gaza produced by the United Nations on January 28, 2025, gives an account and details of what has allowed the ceasefire with respect to these exchanges between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n\n

The images in this report<\/a><\/strong> published on January 23 in Israel by Magazine+972<\/em> (which we recommend reading in full), give an account of the desolation of many displaced Palestinian families inside Gaza as they return to what were their neighborhoods, totally destroyed or disfigured, taking advantage of the truce in the Israeli bombings, effective since January 19, 2025 at 11:15.<\/h5>\n\n

With the massive influx of humanitarian aid and the temporary relief it means for the 2.3 million people in Gaza who have been deprived of all basic necessities for many long months (water, food, medicine, clothing and tents to protect them from the cold in the case of displaced persons), it is also hoped that human rights organizations and teams of international investigators can take advantage of this cessation of hostilities, which should last for 42 days (corresponding to phase I of the agreement between Israel and Hamas) to document events and recover testimonies of the genocide taking place in Gaza, the subject of South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel. This is precisely what can be read in this joint statement<\/a> of January 20, 2025, human rights experts on torture, which received very little coverage in the major international media. In its press release welcoming the ceasefire of January 15, 2025, Amnesty International did not hesitate to state that: > press release <\/strong> In welcoming the ceasefire of January 15, 2025, Amnesty International did not hesitate to state that:<\/p>\n\n

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The international community which has thus far shamefully failed to persuade Israel to comply with its legal obligations must ensure Israel immediately allows lifesaving supplies to urgently reach all parts of the occupied Gaza Strip to ensure the survival of the Palestinian population. This includes guaranteeing the entry of vital medical supplies to treat the wounded and sick and facilitating urgent repairs to medical facilities and other vital infrastructure. Unless Israel\u2019s illegal blockade of Gaza is promptly lifted, this suffering will only continue. They must also urgently grant access to independent human rights monitors into Gaza to uncover evidence and reveal the extent of violations<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Despite figures on fatalities in Gaza provided by the Gaza health authorities and the United Nations over the last 15 months, it is very likely that the final balance is an underestimate: for a well-known French author, a former soldier in the military who is much in demand in the French press, having been in charge of carrying out bombings and evaluating their impact when he was in the military, we read in his latest article<\/a><\/strong> on his website \u2018Ne pas Subir\u2019 that the death toll in Gaza actually exceeds 100,000 victims;<\/p>\n\n

Un cessez-le-feu apr\u00e8s plus de 100,000 bombardements contre Gaza<\/em><\/p>Cet accord constitue en premier lieu un immense soulagement apr\u00e8s 15 mois de guerre d\u00e9clench\u00e9e par l\u2019attaque terroriste du Hamas le 7 octobre 2023 contre Isra\u00ebl (1,400 morts et disparus). Un immense soulagement apr\u00e8s plus de 100,000 bombardements d\u00e9cid\u00e9s par Benyamin Netanyahou contre la bande de Gaza et qui ont fait un nombre au moins \u00e9quivalent de morts et 3,5 fois plus de bless\u00e9s, soit de l\u2019ordre de 500,000 victimes, bless\u00e9s et d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9s parmi les Palestiniens”.<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n

According to this this interview<\/a> with RFI<\/em> in May 2024, and in another<\/a><\/strong> October article in FranceInfo<\/em>, this French expert already explained in some detail the limitations of all kinds of death records made by the health authorities in Gaza, which only record clearly identified bodies found, leaving out unidentified bodies or bodies lying under rubble that no rescue team can access. Precisely in this <\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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On a retrouv\u00e9 des corps dans les rues, abandonn\u00e9s depuis des mois. Mais qu\u2019en est-il de ceux toujours sous les d\u00e9combres\u00a0<\/small>? Comment revivre dans ces lieux en sachant que les corps des v\u00f4tres sont l\u00e0, sous vos pieds\u00a0<\/small>? Jusque-l\u00e0, \u00e0 Rafah, on a d\u00e9terr\u00e9 pr\u00e8s de 200\u00a0d\u00e9pouilles \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9tat de squelettes. Et ce n\u2019est qu\u2019un d\u00e9but. Les recherches sont difficiles, elles doivent \u00eatre men\u00e9es avec d\u00e9licatesse. Il faut des op\u00e9rateurs de bulldozers capables de chercher les corps sans les \u00e9craser.\u00a0Ces squelettes \u00e9parpill\u00e9s dans les rues ou enferm\u00e9s dans les ruines, c\u2019est pour les Gazaouis un choc encore plus grand que la guerre. Nous vivions dans une tornade, un mixeur qui tourne et qui tourne. Le mixeur s\u2019est arr\u00eat\u00e9. Et il nous laisse coup\u00e9s en morceaux. Il n\u2019y a plus de vie. Des gens essaient de se motiver pour nettoyer un peu. Le gouvernement du Hamas a commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 d\u00e9gager les routes, \u00e0 pomper de l\u2019eau, sa police s\u2019est d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e dans les march\u00e9s, s\u2019occupe de la circulation. Mais ce n\u2019est pas du tout suffisant<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

In the aforementioned United Nations report<\/a><\/strong> on Gaza dated January 28, 2025, we can read that:<\/h5>\n\n
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Between the afternoons of 22 January and 28 January, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza reported that 193 Palestinians were killed and 397 were injured. This includes 171 bodies retrieved across the Gaza Strip. Since the ceasefire came into effect on 19 January, and as of 28 January, a total of 354 bodies were retrieved from areas that were previously inaccessible, MoH reported<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Equally interesting is this report<\/a><\/strong> by the channel AlJazeera<\/em> on January 24 about various educational initiatives that take advantage of the absence of bombings in Gaza to return children to the classroom: rebuilding the traumatized minds of young people after 15 months of incessant bombing is quite a challenge, one that Palestinian teachers and international volunteers are willing to face.<\/p>\n\n

The context of Belize’s request for intervention<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

Before going into detail about the action brought by Belize at the end of January 2025, it is worth recalling that South Africa chose to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague in December 2023, after observing the United States exercising its right to veto in the United Nations Security Council (see official note<\/strong><\/a> from the United Nations): this US veto on December 8 prevented the adoption of a resolution that had been proposed and extensively negotiated by the United Arab Emirates, demanding a ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.<\/p>\n\n

That vote recorded 13 votes in favor, one abstention (United Kingdom) and the solitary veto of the United States: see the official United Nations press release<\/a><\/strong> of December 8 and this press release<\/strong><\/a>. On December 22, 2023, the United States did not oppose a very similar resolution, but in which the operative paragraph on a ceasefire was … discarded (Note 1<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n

It was after observing these American maneuvers within the Security Council that South Africa filed its lawsuit against Israel for genocide in Gaza with the ICJ on December 29, 2023. And it is within the framework of this contentious lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel that, on January 30, 2025, Belize formally submitted a formal request for intervention to the ICJ: see the official ICJ communiqu\u00e9s of January 31, 2025 in French and in English. org\/sites\/default\/files\/case-related\/192\/192-20250131-pre-01-00-fr.pdf\u201c>French and English<\/a><\/strong>.<\/h5>\n\n

Notice, as an interesting fact, scarcely disseminated in some international press media, that the terms of the ceasefire agreement reached on January 15, 2025 are practically identical to the one proposed in December 2023, according to one of the mediators, Qatar, outraged by so much lost time (see article<\/a><\/strong> in the JerusalemPost<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n

<\/span>\"Gaza
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Photo of Palestinian families returning to their neighborhoods on January 19, 2025, published in the reportaje<\/a><\/strong> del 23 de enero del 2025 de Magazine+972, titulado My neighborhood was one of the most beautiful in Gaza. All that\u00b4s left is rubble.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

Some brief details about Belize’s request for intervention<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n

In their request for intervention, which was sent in English on January 30, 2025 (see text<\/a><\/strong>), Belize proceeds to present its arguments regarding the interpretation it considers should be given to some of the main provisions of the 1948 Genocide Convention.<\/p>\n\n

Remember that, negotiated and adopted in 1948, the terms and formulations found in this convention should be interpreted in the light of the evolution of public international law since 1945, in the interest of better protecting a group or a specific population that is the victim of an attempt to exterminate it, as well as preventing new acts perpetrated with the same objective.<\/p>\n\n

Belize, as a State Party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, is seeking to make the ICJ judges aware that they should also be guided by interpretations that best respond to the spirit of the Convention. The request is based on Article 63, paragraph 2 of the ICJ Statute, a provision that reads as follows:<\/p>\n\n

Article 63: <\/em><\/h5>\n\n