New Delhi: The UN’s top judicial body on Tuesday (April 30) ruled against Nicaragua’s case concerning whether Germany should halt its military aid to Israel.
By a 15-1 vote, the court concluded that “at present, the circumstances are not such as to require the exercise its powers … to indicate provisional measures,” president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Nawaf Salam said.
Nicaragua had alleged that German military aid to Israel enables acts of genocide and constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
It asked the court to indicate five provisional measures, of which there are two main ones: one is that Germany be ordered to immediately suspend its aid, including military assistance, to Israel in so far as it may be used in the violation of international humanitarian conventions and norms, including the Genocide Convention.
The second is that the ICJ order Germany to resume funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA.
While rejecting Nicaragua’s request, the panel however declined Germany’s request to de-list the case, saying there was “no manifest lack of jurisdiction” to justify doing so at the provisional measures stage.
This means the case will continue to be heard at the ICJ, AP reported.
The court also said it “remains deeply concerned about the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which they have been subjected.”
The central American state had instituted proceedings against Germany on March 1 in the Hague-based International Court of Justice for violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols and international laws in the Gaza Strip.
Since October 7, Israel has conducted a military invasion of Gaza after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a terror attack that left around 1200 dead and took over 200 hostages. The latest toll from Israel’s continuing operation in Gaza is over 34,000, more than two-thirds being women and children.
Germany is Israel’s second largest arms supplier after the United States, approving sales worth $353.70 million in 2023.
A month before Nicaragua went to the ICJ, the world court had told Israel that it must comply with the Genocide Convention and immediately increase the flow of aid into Gaza but stopped short of ordering Tel Aviv to cease its military operations.
The ICJ’s provisional ruling was in a case filed by South Africa arguing that Israel had violated the Genocide Convention.
Nicaragua had asked the ICJ to order Germany to resume funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, which had been stopped after Israel had claimed that the organisation had been infiltrated with Hamas.
Last week, an independent review commissioned by the UN secretary general had found that Israel had not provided evidence to support its accusations that many employees of UNRWA were members of terrorist organizations.
Germany signalled that it will resume funding after the independent review, despite the report being slammed by Israel.
Immediately after the Oct 7 attack, German chancellor Olaf Scholz had arrived within days in Tel Aviv to express solidarity. It had been one of the staunchest supporters of Israel’s right to self-defence after the Hamas attack, but publicly the tone has changed substantially in the last few weeks.
Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 17, 2023, Chancellor Scholz said that Germany had “only one place” during the Jewish state’s trying circumstances, and “and that is alongside Israel.”
Five months later, Scholz was back in Tel Aviv. “The more desperate the situation of the people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?,” he said at a press conference with Netanyahu on March 17.
At the open hearing earlier this month, Nicaraguan ambassador to the Netherlands, Carlos José Argüello Gómez said, “Germany is failing to honour its own obligation to prevent genocide or to ensure respect of international humanitarian law”.
He also stated even when a “so-called right of self-defence is invoked, it can never serve to justify violations of the norms of the Genocide Convention or other norms of international humanitarian law”. “Surprisingly, Germany seems not to be able to differentiate between self-defence and genocide,” added the Nicaraguan envoy.
Alluding to the Holocaust, German foreign ministry’s legal adviser Tania von Uslar-Gleichen told the court that Germany’s history was “the reason why Israel’s security has been at the core of Germany’s foreign policy”.
“Where Germany has provided support to Israel, including in a form of export of arms and other military equipment, the quality and purposes of these supplies have been grossly distorted by Nicaragua,” she said.
The German diplomat also stated that Berlin “has learned from its past, a past that includes the responsibility for one of the most horrific crimes in human history, the Shoah”.
