LArticle 63 of the statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) offers any State the option of asserting its interpretation of a multilateral convention to which it is a party when this agreement is at issue in a dispute. The so-called “intervening” State may, in doing so, influence the interpretation of this convention by the Court: it will then be binding on it as it is in principle for the parties to the dispute.
This procedure is very successful with the rich and recent litigation sparked by the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of December 9, 1948. Seven states intervened in the case Gambia v. Myanmarand thirty-two in the case Ukraine v. Russia.
This number should not be surprising for a convention in which “the contracting States have no interests of their own (but) only, each and every one, a common interest, that of preserving the higher ends which are the reason for the existence of the convention” (advisory opinion of May 28, 1951, “ Reservations to the Genocide Convention “). France is among these interveners, jointly with five other States in the first case, individually in the second.
Like Germany which announced it on January 12, France must also intervene in the proceedings introduced by South Africa against Israel on December 29, 2023 regarding the application of the convention in the Gaza Strip. The continuity and logic of its legal policy require it, especially since it will participate, like many States, in the consultative procedure concerning ” Legal consequences arising from Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem », activated just a year ago by the United Nations General Assembly.
But it is first of all because “words have meaning”as declared in the National Assembly on January 17, the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Stéphane Séjourné] during questions to the government, that France must intervene to make these words resonate in the rigorous terms of the law.
Other reasonable conclusions
The acts recorded by the 1948 convention and the inflammatory declarations of the agents and supreme organs of the State of Israel, which South Africa cites to provide proof of genocide, are part of a very specific context. different from that of the Rohingyas of Burma: namely the massive military response launched by Israel, by virtue of its right of self-defense against the outright armed aggression perpetrated against it by Hamas on October 7.
You have 60% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.