Lebanon, Ukraine, Gaza / Palestine / Israel, and the Rule of Law
- Sir David Baragwanath
- Jul 1, 2024
- 44 min read
Updated: Jun 11
International law faces two profound issues. Each involves Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations prohibiting the use of force by one Member State against another. Both concern the roles of the Security Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
One—Ukraine and the Russian Federation (Russia)—is whether the armed entry into Ukraine on 24 April 2022 and since of Russia as a great power is immune from the rule of law.
The other—Gaza/Palestine and Israel—concerns the relations between another state, Israel, and its immediate neighbour Palestine, including the small Gaza strip. There is currently awaited on the topic of Israel’s treatment of Palestine an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of major importance on which judgment was reserved on 26 February 2024.
On 7 October 2023, citizens of Israel and visitors were brutally and unlawfully attacked and 1,100 people killed by members of Hamas crossing the border from Gaza who then committed the further war crime of hostage abduction of some 250 people. Israel’s response, in reliance on rights of self-defence, has resulted at the time of writing, and before a proposed forthcoming ground offensive, in over 30,000 deaths and many more injuries in Gaza in air and other attacks, said to be directed against the Hamas attackers. The victims were predominantly innocent civilians and their children. Wholesale demolition of buildings is alleged to have caused further deaths.
On 20 May 2024 the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court published a statement that he was seeking issue by ICC judges of warrants of arrest in the situation in the State of Palestine against:
the Head Yahya SINWAR (Head of (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023; and
