South Africa’s willingness to file a case with the International Court of Justice is a sign that the old tactics used to police discourse about genocide have lost much of their power.
by Darryl Li, Dissent
Over the past three months, the charge that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip has gone from a protest chant to a formal hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. We are experiencing a major upheaval in debates over the language of mass atrocity in the West. The mounting horrors in Gaza have reconfigured the international legal terrain, opening up political space even among experts and jurists accustomed to operating within the relatively narrow confines set by powerful states.
On October 15, over 800 scholars signed an open letter expressing concerns about possible genocide. This provided cover for nine independent UN human rights experts several days later to issue their own warning of a “risk of genocide,” kicking off a cascade of similar statements across the UN human rights system. While higher-level UN officials shied away from using the term due to fear of alienating the United States and other powerful allies of Israel, governments across the Global South began invoking genocide with increasing regularity and alarm.

Finally, it was South Africa that took the fateful step of initiating a case in the ICJ against Israel for violating its obligations under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, to which Israel is a signatory. The ICJ has jurisdiction over disputes between states concerning the interpretation or application of the Genocide Convention. South Africa alleges that the convention creates obligations between all its signatories, allowing them to hold each other accountable for breaches; this argument is based on the precedent set in a similar ICJ case, whose final outcome is still pending, filed by Gambia alleging that Myanmar has committed genocide against its ethnic Rohingya minority.
Recent Posts
New Poll: Democratic Socialism Is Now Mainstream
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now A national poll from Jacobin, DSA Fund, and Data for Progress finds broad support for democratic socialist leaders and left-wing…
Gerrymandering & The War On Democracy
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now It’s one piece of a much larger democratic breakdown.By RJ Eskow, The Zero Hour Report A few days before the Charlie Kirk…
What Happened To Silverio Villegas González
September 17, 2025
Take Action Now Immigration agents shot and killed an unarmed 38-year-old father outside Chicago on Friday—and their initial narrative of events was…
Talk World Radio: Sam Rosenthal On The Occupation Of DC And What’s The Matter With Democrats
September 16, 2025
Take Action Now War, peace, and politics with RootsAction’s Political Director Sam RosenthalBy David Swanson and Sam Rosenthal, Talk World Radio…