Why the ICJ Keeps Throwing Out Genocide Convention Claims
Whether in Ukraine or in Gaza, the International Court of Justice has resisted using the term reserved for the very worst atrocity.
In Rafah on Feb. 15.
Photographer: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images/AFPFears and accusations of genocide stalk both the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza. But as painful as the human suffering is in both regions, the Genocide Convention defines this worst of human atrocities very narrowly. Two recent rulings at the UN’s International Court of Justice serve as a reminder — and a sign that the court is walking back a 2019 ruling that opened the floodgates to genocide lawsuits. Both cases should serve as a warning to South Africa in its quest to have the court halt Israel’s military operations in Rafah.
In its recent decisions involving genocide accusations in Ukraine and Gaza, the ICJ has shown that it is unwilling to expand the definition of genocide beyond that in the convention: the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. These decisions, while disappointing for some human rights advocates, protect the original intent of the Genocide Convention — preventing the worst crime perpetrated by humanity.