The USA’s National Public Radio (NPR) network published these words on January 26, 2024: “The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention.”
As the world’s press and online media reported the ICJ’s decisions in the case brought before it by South Africa, which had charged Israel with committing genocide in Gaza, this same form of words appeared time and again. What is not generally known, however, is that the judge who presided over the court and who actually delivered the court’s decision, maintains that the world’s media were wrong then, and have been repeating the incorrect interpretation of the court’s decision ever since. This is not, Judge Joan Donoghue says, at all what the court decided.
On April 25, Judge Donoghue, the president of the ICJ when hearing the case, was interviewed on the long-running BBC television program Hardtalk to mark her retirement. Her interviewer, Stephen Sackur, asked her if the key point the court considered in reaching its preliminary decision was whether there was a plausible case that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza following the Hamas attack of October 7.
“You quite clearly decided that there was a plausible case,” said Sackur. “Is it right to say that’s at the heart of what you decided?”
Interviewer and guest had clearly agreed that this question would be put quite early on. Judge Donoghue responded: “I’m glad I have the chance to address that.”
She began by explaining that the court’s test for deciding whether to........