[Salon] Nicaragua institutes ICJ emergency proceedings against Germany for complicity in Gaza genocide

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

FM: John Whitbeck

Transmitted below is a press release issued today by the International Court of Justice with respect to the emergency proceedings instituted by Nicaragua against Germany for complicity in the Gaza genocide.

Germany has, of course, carried out genocides in South- West Africa (Namibia) and Europe in the 20th century and is highly enthusiastic about and totally supportive of the current genocide in Palestine, making it probably second only to the United States as the most appropriate target for complicity proceedings at the ICJ.

Some may recall that Nicaragua has a history at the ICJ. In 1986, Nicaragua won the case which it had brought against the United States, with the ICJ holding that the United States had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Sandinista government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors and ordering the United States to pay reparations to Nicaragua (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States).

Unsurprisingly, the United States ignored the ICJ's ruling, blocked its enforcement by the UN Security Council and convinced a successor Nicaraguan government to renounce its right to reparations.

This history, as well as the prudent desire not to trigger another American regime-change operation, may explain why Nicaragua has chosen to make its point by targeting Germany rather than the United States.

 

Nicaragua institutes ICJ emergency proceedings against Germany for complicity in Gaza genocide

 

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/193/193-20240301-pre-01-00-en.pdf

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

Peace Palace, Carnegieplein 2, 2517 KJ The Hague, Netherlands

Tel.: +31 (0)70 302 2323 Fax: +31 (0)70 364 9928

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Press Release

Unofficial

No. 2024/19

1 March 2024

The Republic of Nicaragua institutes proceedings against the Federal Republic of Germany

and requests the Court to indicate provisional measures.

THE HAGUE, 1 March 2024. Nicaragua today filed an Application instituting proceedings

against Germany before the International Court of Justice for 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.

The Applicant states 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 found 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 contains 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

requests the Court to indicate provisional measures as a matter of extreme urgency, pending the

Court’s determination on the merits of the case, with respect to 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”.

Pursuant to Article 74 of the Rules of Court, “[a] request for the indication of provisional

measures shall have priority over all other cases”.