Published: 2025-02-27

Making the Genocide Convention Globally Effective by the Doctrine of Prevention. Comments on the ICJ Provisional Measures Orders in the case of South Africa v. Israel

Tomasz Lachowski
Polish Review of International and European Law
Section: Case comments
https://doi.org/10.21697/2024.13.2.07

Abstract

On 29 December 2023, South Africa filed an application against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning alleged violations of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 in relation to the protected group of Palestinians in the course of the large-scale military operation in Gaza Strip launched by the Israeli authorities as a response to an attack carried out by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023. The main aim of this case commentary is to analyze the provisional measure orders issued by the ICJ in the Genocide Convention case (South Africa v. Israel) on 26 January 2024, 28 March 2024 and 24 May 2024 in the light of South Africa’s effort to make the Genocide Convention ‘globally effective’ by emphasizing the key role played by the obligation to prevent genocide in a process of securing the most fundamental rights of the protected groups under this treaty. Besides, it examines the interrelated issue of the ability of the ICJ to address the hard legal cases with strong political implications by the instrument of provisional measures.

 

Keywords:

genocide, international law, ICJ provisional measures order, South Africa, Israel, Gaza Strip

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Citation rules

Lachowski, T. (2025). Making the Genocide Convention Globally Effective by the Doctrine of Prevention. Comments on the ICJ Provisional Measures Orders in the case of South Africa v. Israel. Polish Review of International and European Law, 13(2), 211–249. https://doi.org/10.21697/2024.13.2.07

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