Today (21st May 2024) the left is rightly welcoming and amplifying the move by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at The Hague to seek arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity “committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population”.
In January, when South Africa referred Israel to the International Court of Justice the left similarly and correctly blared a fanfare, I penned the piece below (16th January 2024) about a tale of two courts; about the very different responses to prosecutions and verdicts in the same courts against Russia in Ukraine and against Israel in Palestine. I think that it bears repeating today.
Des Derwin 21st May 2024
Are there two international courts?!!
Today [16th January 2024] the left – and all decent people – are blaring a fanfare for the referral of Israel by South Africa to the International Court of Justice. And rightly so. It is to be welcomed and it should be supported by the Irish government. All platforms and publications of the left are buzzing with it today. South Africa is being commended effusively for their initiative and congratulated wholeheartedly for their solidarity with the people of Gaza. The left has, obliviously, great respect and faith in the International Court of Justice. The left sees it as very significant that a state should be brought to the International Court of Justice to answer for its crimes.
‘evidence submitted by South Africa claims “acts and omissions” by Israel “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”’. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922346
The Irish government and many other governments are being accused, not least by the Irish radical left, of double standards, inconsistency and hypocrisy in their attitudes and responses to Russian crimes in Ukraine and Israeli crimes in Palestine.
Fine. So:
“On 26 February 2022 [two days after the invasion], Ukraine filed an application instituting proceedings against the Russian Federation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, concerning “a dispute . . . relating to the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” (the “Genocide Convention”). In its Application, Ukraine contends, inter alia, that “the Russian Federation has falsely claimed that acts of genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine… In the Application, Ukraine also accuses the Russian Federation of “planning acts of genocide in Ukraine” and contends that Russia “is intentionally killing and inflicting serious injury on members of the Ukrainian nationality – the actus reus of genocide under Article II of the [Genocide]Convention”. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/182/182-20220227-PRE-01-00-EN.pdf
Ireland, along with 32 other countries, supported Ukraine’s submission to the International Court of Justice, much to the vocal displeasure of the bulk the Irish radical left. Now the Irish government is being filleted for not supporting South Africa’s submission to the same court on the same issue of genocide.
On March 16, 2022, the International Court of Justice indicated among its provisional measures that “the Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations it began on February 24, 2022 in the territory of Ukraine”. Russia did not accept this order, and objected to the Court’s jurisdiction and the inadmissibility of the application. https://unric.org/en/international-court-of-justice-ukraine-v-russia/
There is only one International Court of Justice (ICJ). However there are two international courts that deal with war crimes. The other is the International Criminal Court. And Russia’s leaders have been brought before that too in relation to the war in Ukraine.
“…ICJ cases involve countries, and the ICC is a criminal court, which brings cases against individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity. Also, whilst the ICJ is an organ of the United Nations, the ICC is legally independent of the UN, (although it is endorsed by the General Assembly). While not all 193 UN Member States are parties to the ICC, it can launch investigations and open cases related to alleged crimes committed on the territory or by a national of a State party to the ICC or of a State that has accepted its jurisdiction. The ICJ, which is situated in the Peace Palace in The Hague,… is one of the six “principal organs” of the United Nations.” https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1145392
“On 17 March 2023, following an investigation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, alleging responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children during the Russo-Ukrainian War. The warrant against Putin is the first against the leader of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The 123 member states of the ICC [including South Africa] are obliged to detain and transfer Putin and Lvova-Belova if either sets foot on their territory.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Vladimir_Putin_and_Maria_Lvova-Belova
A tale of two courts after all. Both have had Russia hauled before it. Both have ordered Russia to stop. When Ukraine prosecutes Russia – in both the ICJ and the ICC – silence [and, in some cases, objection) from our ‘anti-imperialists’ neutralists and ‘anti-war’ campaigners. When South Africa prosecutes Israel our ‘anti-imperialists’ etc. are the loudest among humanitarians to publicise, post and proclaim from the rooftops these steps to bringing war criminals to justice. And hopefully there will be tens of thousands adding to the volume at the march for Gaza next Saturday. Yet occupiers bombarding cities are killing civilians in appalling numbers, in both stricken parts of the world.
Today [16th January 2024]there was a press conference in Dublin to demand that the Irish government support the case against Israel brought by South Africa before the ICJ. This press conference featured a very rare unity right across the left-leaning parliamentary spectrum from Labour through Sinn Fein and the Social Democrats to People Before Profit. The final three parties listed had supported the ICJ case against Russia and could point to the government’s inconsistency in supporting the Ukrainian case to the ICJ, but not the South African one, by adding that they had supported the Ukrainian and South African one. Thus pointing up the government’s inconsistency and double standard without having to point up a mixed message of their own.
The radical and self-identifying‘anti-imperialist’ marxist organisations, inside and outside parliament, those who could have organised solidarity for Ukraine but are not in solidarity with Ukraine, could only shake a fist at the government’s contradictory stance between Ukraine and Gaza by simultaneously shaking a shadow fist at their own contradictory stance, stood on its head, between those two contemporary horrors, in Ukraine and Gaza, horrors we swore we would never again tolerate.
Irish Left With Ukraine - Neither Moscow nor Washington 
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