ICJ order UN court's Gaza decision puts the west to the test

In seeking a provisional order from the international court of justice restraining Israel from committing potentially genocidal acts in Gaza, South Africa put not just Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the dock but also the whole post-second world war rules-based order, including the authority of the ICJ itself. Never has there been such a high-profile case brought in the middle of such a bloody conflict.

- Patrick Wintour

In the words of the Irish barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who set out part of South's Africa case to the court, "the imminent risk of death, harm and destruction that Palestinians in Gaza face today, and that they risk every day during the pendency of these proceedings, on any view justifies - indeed compels - the indication of provisional measures. Some might say that the very reputation of international law - its ability and willingness to bind and to protect all peoples equally hangs in the balance." 

Extraordinarily, the court did not shirk from what it regarded as its responsibilities. It did not order a ceasefire but it granted protective orders, including an end to the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, that went further than many international law experts were predicting.

The ruling is devastating for Israel and awkward for politicians such as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who said the case was meritless, and the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, who urged South Africa not to bandy around words such as genocide.

The highest court in the world, the apex of the United Nations, has found there is a plausible risk that Palestinians' right to be protected from a genocide are under threat from Israel's actions.

Moment of reflection

For Israel, in part born in 1948 from the horrors of the Holocaust and centuries of persecution, this could be a moment for reflection. Its national identity is intertwined with the Holocaust, just as South Africa's is indivisible from apartheid.