Gaza today
The Hague: Nicaragua filed today an application instituting proceedings against Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It alleged violations by Germany of its obligations deriving from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”), the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, “intransgressible principles of international humanitarian law” and other norms of general international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly the Gaza Strip.
Nicaragua stated that “[e]ach and every Contracting Party to the Genocide Convention has a duty under the Convention to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide” and that, since October 2023, there has been “a recognised risk of genocide against the Palestinian people, directed first of all against the population of the Gaza Strip”. Nicaragua argues that by providing political, financial and military support to Israel and by defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case, has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide”.
Nicaragua seeks to find the Court’s jurisdiction on the declarations by which both States accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court and on the compromissory clause contained in Article IX of the Genocide Convention.
The application also contained a request for the indication of provisional measures, pursuant to Article 41 of the Statute of the Court and Articles 73, 74 and 75 of the Rules of Court. Nicaragua requested the Court to indicate provisional measures as a matter of extreme urgency, pending the Court’s determination on the merits of the case, concerning Germany’s “participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law and other peremptory norms of general international law occurring in the Gaza Strip”.
According to Article 74 of the Rules of Court, “[a] request for the indication of provisional measures shall have priority over all other cases”.
– global bihari bureau
