Regional power South Africa is denouncing Israel on behalf of the Palestinians before the International Court of Justice, and hearings will begin in The Hague today. Austria does not want to harm the case.
If only all courts acted so quickly: less than two weeks passed from South Africa's 84-page request for urgent proceedings against Israel on charges of genocide in the Gaza War to the first hearing before the International Court of Justice in The Hague . On Thursday, at the UN's highest court in the Dutch capital, Dikgang Moseneke, former vice-president of the South African Constitutional Court, will speak on the prosecution side before the 15-member body.
South Africa accuses Israel of violating the Genocide Convention, which was postulated in 1948 under the decisive initiative of the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin and under the impression of the Nazi regime's genocide against the Jews. It describes acts that aim to destroy national, ethnic and religious groups as genocide. South Africa and Israel are among the signatories to punish the “crime of all crimes”. Unlike the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, which brings charges against individuals, the World Court negotiates between individual states.