As World Court Rules on the Israeli Occupation, the U.S. Refuses to Recognize the Geneva Conventions
Sid Shniad
On Friday, the International Court of Justice (also called the World Court) is set to issue its “Advisory Opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” The case was heard in February, see video and report.
This case is years in the works, with the UN General Assembly having passed a resolution asking for the ruling in 2022. See Al-Haq position paper on the case, below.
This case is related to the 2004 ICJ case which found that Israel’s “construction of the wall and its associated regime are contrary to the relevant provisions of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” The current case questions the legality of the 57-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a whole.
However, the U.S. and Israel have refused to recognize the applicability of the Geneva Convention to the Palestinians. See Sam Husseini questioning State Department officials, “State Dept. Deceits on Geneva Convention.”
The Times of Israel recently reported that Finance Minister Bezalel “Smotrich calls on Netanyahu to annex West Bank if World Court declares settlements illegal.”
In December, Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported in the Huffington Post in “Amid U.N. Security Council Intrigue, U.S. Privately Moves To Block Another Option For International Accountability For Gaza” that: “The Biden administration is finalizing plans to urge Switzerland to reject a request from Palestine and its supporters to hold a conference on violations of the Geneva Conventions.”
Jewish News Syndicate reports: “The International Criminal Court in The Hague is expected to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant within the next two weeks, according to Israel’s Channel 14.”
Netanyahu is scheduled to give a speech at the U.S. Capitol on July 24. Major protests are expected.
These legal scholars who have followed the case are available for interviews:
MICHAEL
LYNK, msl...@uwo.ca, @MichaelLynk5
Lynk served as the United
Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied
Palestinian territory from 2016 to 2022. He is a non-resident
fellow at DAWN.
JOHN
QUIGLEY, quig...@osu.edu
Professor emeritus of international
law at Ohio State University, Quigley’s books include The
Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East
Conflict (Cambridge
University Press). He recently wrote the piece “Forget
the Security Council: The General Assembly Can Admit Palestine.”
FRANCIS
BOYLE, fbo...@illinois.edu
Boyle is professor of international
law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He represented
Bosnia at the International Court of Justice in its Genocide
Convention case against Yugoslavia. He has been interviewed by
MSNBC, CBS News and other outlets on the South Africa genocide case
against Israel. See a recent interview by Rachel
Blevins.
The Genocide Convention case is ongoing and has resulted in Orders by the ICJ for Israel to stop its offensive in Rafah, which Israel and the U.S. have continued to ignore.
The Al-Haq report states that “the prohibition in Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that ‘the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,’ was intended to prevent ‘a practise adopted during the Second World War by some Powers which transferred parts of their own populations into occupied territories for political and racial reasons or, as they claimed, in order to colonise those territories.’ Under international law, there is neither ‘permanent occupation’ nor ‘settler-occupation.’ Therefore, Israel’s policies and practices are more akin to those of colonial powers than those of an occupying power.”