Experts on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said a judgment on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is unlikely before the end of 2027 at the earliest, amid warnings that the international community should not use the court’s glacial proceedings as an excuse to put off action to stop the killing.
Israel was originally due to present its rebuttal to the genocide charge brought by South Africa on Monday, but the court has granted its lawyers a six-month extension.
The South African legal team countered that none of the arguments given by Israeli lawyers were a legitimate reason for delay, and dragging out the case was unjustifiable in view of the humanitarian emergency in Gaza. But the court sided with Israel, which now has until next January to present its case.
“The second round is usually around six months each, so that’s another year, and then that brings us to January 2027,” said Michael Becker, who served as a legal officer at the ICJ from 2010 to 2014, and who is now assistant professor of international human rights law at Trinity College Dublin.
A range of factors could drag the case into 2028 however, including demands by other countries to intervene.
You’re right, we likely won’t convince each other of the other’s view point, so not much point labouring over it in regards to Canada’s actions explicitly.
That said, back to the core point, I don’t think anything you’ve said changes my position that equating these two things cheapens the word Genocide.
To take a similar situation to clarify: Rape. Go back a decade or two, and Rape brought forward images of like, a guy hiding in a dark parking lot at night, jumping out and violently forcing himself on a woman. Or cases where the rapist broke into a single woman’s home and assaulted her. Now, in Canada for example, when a woman has an orgy with 5 guys, is recorded saying shit like “Get over here and fuck me you pussy”, and later decides she didn’t want to do that… it’s called rape. Or the Harvey situation, where women consenting to sex in exchange for power/privilege, is called rape. Advocacy groups make claims like over 50% of women have been raped, with the ‘broader’ understanding of the word. Even if some legal gits have structured arguments and bullshit so that the term ‘technically’ fits in the broader sense, people care a lot less now when someone like Trump is called a Rapist – the words been diluted to a point where its lost its power. If everyone’s a rapist, why be morally outraged?
Calling Canada’s actions over the course of more than a century a genocide does the same thing. Calling Canada’s actions a genocide, while dithering on whether Israel’s actions count, makes the term genocide far less impactful.