Today marks one year since South Africa brought the charge of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In the legal case, known formally as South Africa vs. Israel, South Africa has argued that Israel has engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in violation of its obligations under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Both South Africa and Israel have signed the Convention without reservation, and both states have important and unique relationships to international law, South Africa having included a number of international legal obligations in its 1996 post-apartheid constitution and the modern state of Israel owing its international recognition in many ways to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The immediate celebratory response within the global Palestine solidarity movement was no surprise. While many recognized the limited capacity of the world to enforce international law, the hope existed that even if purely symbolic, the case brought by South Africa would have some tangible consequence for the Palestinians in Gaza. ….more
