International Court of Justice

• Amid international criticism of Israel for its continued bombing of Gaza, South Africa moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ), for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
• As per the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such-
  • Killing members of the group;
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

About ICJ

• It is a United Nations platform for resolving disputes between states.
• Also known as the World Court.
• Established- June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations
• The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands).
• It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
• The hearings of the ICJ are always public.
• Official languages of the Court- French and English
• It is composed of 15 judges, all from different countries, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the Security Council (UNSC).
  • Elections are held every three years when one-third of the court judges retire.
• The International Court of Justice has no jurisdiction over individuals who are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
• It cannot take up cases on will and has to be requested to do so by the States.