Judge Julia Sebutinde is set to assume the presidency of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), marking another milestone in her groundbreaking career as well as a significant shift for the court.
The Ugandan jurist, who recently made headlines for her robust defence of Israel against South Africa’s genocide allegations, will take the helm following current President Nawaf Salam’s departure.
Salam has been appointed Prime Minister of his native Lebanon by new president Joseph Aoun, whose election, backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, represents a major blow to Iran and its proxy Hezbollah.
Sebutinde’s recent ruling on the Israel-Hamas War has particularly resonated in international legal circles. She dismissed South Africa’s requests for temporary injunctions to halt the Gaza war, asserting that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is fundamentally political rather than legal in both its nature and historical context, and therefore falls outside the court’s purview.
In the article you posted elsewhere in the thread she is quoted as saying:
I think we would both agree with Mark Kersten, cited in the article, that she’s wrong about that.
It explains however why she would vote the way she did. She is of the opinion that the court does not have jurisdiction, and the rest of her behaviour follows from that. That again does not constitute bias, it constitutes a consistently held (albeit wrong, according to Mark, me, you, and the court majority) opinion.
Listen, I am standing up for her not because she’s right, but because I think that politically this narrative of pro- and anti- Israel justices serves the Israeli Apartheid establishment in undermining the authority of the court.
Every conflict is a political conflict. And in such a conflict it is possible for involved parties to break international criminal law or international law. By her logic no genocide can be subject to the ruling of the ICJ and the laws to prevent genocide are worthless, because genocide will always be an escalation of a political conflict.
Then I am of the opinion she is biased
Lol, you aren’t engaging with my argument at all. What even is the point of this interaction?
You had no argument. Calling her bias an opinion changes nothing.