I am writing to correct an error in Sally Campbell’s otherwise informative article on the international courts. She misquotes the findings of the International Court of Justice in response to South Africa’s petition about alleged genocide in Gaza. The court did not rule that South Africa had a “plausible case,” as Campbell states, but that Gaza Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide.
This is not just splitting hairs. Twisting that ruling to claim that the ICJ found accusations of genocide against Israel to be “plausible” is actually false and contorts the court’s intent. The President of the ICJ at the time of the ruling, Judge Joan Donoghue, has clarified that “the court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court. It then looked at the facts as well, but it did not decide – and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media – it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”
See https://www.ejiltalk.org/implausible-confusion-the-meaning-of-plausibility-in-the-icjs-provisional-measures/ for clarity on what “plausible” means to this court, which is very different from what Sally Campbell claims.
Alan Morinis
Hornby Island
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