ICJ is collateral damage in dysfunctional global system: experts

Judges arrive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on South Africa's request on a Rafah and wider Gaza war ceasefire, in The Hague, on May 24, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 02 June 2024
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ICJ is collateral damage in dysfunctional global system: experts

  • The ICJ’s primary role is to mediate disputes between states, with the majority of its rulings on mundane issues such as border delineations or treaty interpretation

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Ignored by Russia and Israel, the International Court of Justice is hamstrung by a dysfunctional global system that sees countries comply with its rulings — or not — based on their own double standards, experts say.
In 2022, the UN’s highest court ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, still underway two years later.
In May, it ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is ongoing.
Do these refusals to comply with legally binding decisions testify to a lack of credibility and legitimacy on the part of the ICJ? Not really, according to analysts interviewed by AFP, who point instead to the responsibilities of nations within the global system.
Without an international police or armed force, the ICJ “depends on the will and cooperation of states to implement its decisions,” says Raphaelle Nollez-Goldbach, a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research.
“Obviously, this has certain limits,” she continues.
The court says “almost all” of its decisions “are complied with by states, but the few instances of non-compliance — which remain the exception — weigh heavily in international relations,” according to a statement from its press office to AFP.
This is not the court’s fault, the experts insist.
“The credibility problem is with those governments that basically have double standards,” Louis Charbonneau of Human Rights Watch told AFP.
Some Western countries “cheered” the decision on Ukraine, but are “seriously concerned” when it comes to Israel, he explained.
Conversely, countries such as South Africa — which instigated the proceedings against Israel over accusations of “genocide” — “have not been terribly outspoken when it comes to Russian atrocities in Ukraine,” he said.
“To have credibility, they need to enforce (standards) across the board ... for their friends and allies, as well as their rivals and countries they’re competing with. Otherwise, they’re giving other governments arguments and opportunities to do the same,” Charbonneau says.
The ICJ’s primary role is to mediate disputes between states, with the majority of its rulings on mundane issues such as border delineations or treaty interpretation.
It is important to distinguish between those and the few flashpoint cases focusing on “core international crimes,” says Gissou Nia of the Atlantic Council think tank.
She points in particular to proceedings brought by third parties — such as South Africa against Israel over its war with Hamas, or Gambia, which accuses Myanmar of “genocide” against the Muslim Rohingya minority.
An increase in such disputes “could make states want to abandon existing treaties” which give such countries the power to wade into disputes in which they are not directly involved.
Moreover, a number of states — including the United States, Russia, China and Israel — are not party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the other court at The Hague, which prosecutes individual people for committing crimes.
The arrest warrant issued against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and the ICC prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, have provoked an outcry from those concerned.
At times, that has been accompanied by pressure and threats of reprisals.
“That’s a reflection of how serious they’re taking” the court, even those who reject its rulings, says Nia.
For Romuald Sciora, a researcher at the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations, it’s not just the ICC and the ICJ where the question of credibility is at stake.
“All the institutions of today’s multilateral system have lost credibility exponentially in recent years,” he says, citing in particular the deeply divided Security Council at the United Nations.
That in turn affects the ICJ’s credibility — according to the UN Charter, if one party does not comply with an ICJ ruling, the other may try to seek recourse with the Security Council.
As the Israeli offensive on Rafah continues, South Africa this week called on the Council to enforce the ICJ order.
“In practice, however, the Security Council’s paralysis is preventing it from enforcing its own resolutions, let alone the ICJ’s judgments,” notes Said Benarbia of the International Commission of Jurists.


Japan says powerful quake has hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, issues a tsunami advisory

Cracks are seen on the ground in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan Monday, Jan. 1, 2024, following an earthquake. (AP file phot
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Japan says powerful quake has hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, issues a tsunami advisory

  • The quake's epicentre was initially reported some 85 miles (136 kilometres) east of Petropavlovsk in the country's Kamchatka peninsula, at a depth of 12 miles (19 kilometres), USGS said
  • Russia’s Tass news agency reported from the biggest city nearby, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, that many people ran out into the street without shoes or outerwear

TOKYO: Japan’s meteorological agency said on Wednesday that a powerful, magnite 8.0 earthquake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and issued a tsunami advisory for Japan.
The agency said the quake occurred at 8:25 a.m. (2325 GMT Tuesday) and registered a preliminary magnitude of 8.0. It issued an advisory for a tsunami of up to 1 meter (yard) along the Pacific coast of Japan.
So far no damage has been reported.
The quake was about 250 kilometers (160 miles) away from Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost of the country’s four big islands, and was felt only slightly, according to Japan’s NHK television.
The US Geological Survey said it hit at a depth of 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). The USGC said shortly after initial reports that the quake’s strength was 8.7 magnitude.
Russia’s Tass news agency reported from the biggest city nearby, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, that many people ran out into the street without shoes or outerwear. Cabinets toppled inside homes, mirrors were broken, cars swayed in the street and balconies on buildings shook noticeably.
Tass also reported power outages and mobile phone service failures in the capital of the Kamchatka region.
The National Tsunami Warning Center, based in Alaska, issued a tsunami warning for parts of the Alaska Aleutian Islands, and a watch for portions of the West Coast, including California, Oregon, and Washington, and Hawaii.
The advisory also includes a vast swath of Alaska’s coast line, including parts of the panhandle.
According to Japan’s tsunami advisory, which is a lower-level warning than a tsunami alert, a first wave of tsunami was expected in eastern Hokkaido around an hour and half after the quake. The government said it set up a taskforce for information gathering and response in case of any emergency.
A University of Tokyo seismologist Shinichi Sakai told NHK that a distant earthquake could cause a tsunami that affects Japan if its epicenter is shallow.
Japan, part of the area known as the Pacific ring of fire, is one of the world’s most quake-prone country.
Earlier in July, five powerful quakes — the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 — struck in the sea near Kamchatka. The largest quake was at a depth of 20 kilometers and was 144 kilometers (89 miles) east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which has a population of 180,000.
On Nov. 4, 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake in Kamchatka caused damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1-meter (30-foot) waves in Hawaii.

 


Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, with 3 set to die over next month

Updated 13 min 52 sec ago
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Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, with 3 set to die over next month

  • Eight other executions have taken place in Florida this year, with a ninth scheduled for Thursday and a 10th scheduled for Aug. 19, all by lethal injection

TALLAHASSEE, Florida: There are three executions set to take place in Florida over the next month, including a man convicted of fatally shooting three people and wounding another person, under a death warrant signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Curtis Windom, 59, is set to die by lethal injection Aug. 28 in the state with the highest number of executions this year. Experts say an uptick in executions around the country can be traced to aggressive Republican governors and attorney generals pushing to get through lengthy appeals processes and get executions done.
Also, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on his first day back in office to urge prosecutors to seek the death penalty, which may have also fueled the increase, according to John Blume, the director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project.
Windom is scheduled to be killed at Florida State Prison near the city of Starke. He was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to death for the murders of Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis and Mary Lubin.
Eight other executions have taken place in Florida this year, with a ninth scheduled for Thursday and a 10th scheduled for Aug. 19, all by lethal injection. Edward J. Zakrzewski, II, was convicted of killing his wife and two children in 1994 after she sought a divorce, and Kayle Bates was convicted of killing a woman after abducting her from an insurance office in 1982.
According to court documents, Windom bought a .38-caliber revolver and ammunition in the Orlando area on Feb. 7, 1992. He then tracked down Lee and shot him multiple times over what Windom claimed was a $2,000 debt.
Windom then went to the apartment of Davis, with whom he shared a child, and shot her, officials said. Windom shot another man, who survived, while fleeing the apartment. Davis’ mother, Lubin, was driving home when Windom spotted her and shot her at a stop sign.
The Florida Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court will hear final appeals before the execution.
After Florida, Texas and South Carolina are tied for the highest number of executions, with four each this year. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma has killed two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee each have killed one person.

 


Trump says Epstein ‘stole’ young women from Mar-a-Lago spa, including Virginia Giuffre

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Trump says Epstein ‘stole’ young women from Mar-a-Lago spa, including Virginia Giuffre

  • The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration’s refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump’s tightly controlled political coalition

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago.
One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein’s most well-known sex trafficking accusers.
Trump’s comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend “stole people that worked for me.” At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were.
The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration’s refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump’s tightly controlled political coalition. Trump has attempted to tamp down questions about the case, expressing annoyance that people are still talking about it six years after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial, even though some of his own allies have promoted conspiracy theories about it.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend, was recently interviewed inside a Florida courthouse by the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, though officials have not publicly disclosed what she said. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she’s willing to answer more questions from Congress if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony.
Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was “taking people who worked for me.” The women, he said, were “taken out of the spa, hired by him — in other words, gone.”
“I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people,” Trump said. When it happened again, Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said “he stole her.”
The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a “creep.”
Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was a teenager, and hired her as Epstein’s masseuse, which led to sexual abuse.
Although Giuffre’s allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men.
Maxwell, who has denied Giuffre’s allegations, is serving a 20-year-prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which requested the interview with Maxwell, said the panel would not consider granting the immunity she requested.
The potential interview is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department’s July statement that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of Trump’s political base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup.
Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigations. A judge in Florida last week rejected the request, though a similar request for the work of a different grand jury is pending in New York.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewing Maxwell over the course of two days at a Florida courthouse last week.
In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions.
But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright.
“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesperson said.
Separately, Maxwell’s attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she did not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify “openly and honestly, in public,” is in the event of a pardon by Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to make it.
“She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,” they said.

 


US citizen child repatriated from Syrian camp: State Dept

Updated 30 July 2025
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US citizen child repatriated from Syrian camp: State Dept

  • “Approximately 30,000 individuals from more than 70 countries remain in two displaced person camps in northeast Syria, the majority of whom are children under the age of 12; they deserve a chance at life outside the camps,” the statement said

WASHINGTON: An American citizen child has been repatriated from a camp in northeast Syria for “unification” with family, the US State Department said Tuesday.
The child was described as “unaccompanied” in a State Department statement, which did not identify the camp the minor had been retrieved from, their age, or what family they would be unified with.
Since the defeat of the Daesh militant group, Kurdish forces have controlled several camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, where tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict or suspected of links to the terrorist organization live.
The release has “given this child, who has known nothing of life outside of the camps, a future free from the influence and dangers of Daesh terrorism,” the State Department said.
“Approximately 30,000 individuals from more than 70 countries remain in two displaced person camps in northeast Syria, the majority of whom are children under the age of 12; they deserve a chance at life outside the camps,” the statement said.
The State Department called on other countries to “repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and where appropriate, ensure accountability for their nationals. The same goes for former Daesh fighters held in detention centers in northeast Syria.”
For years, the Kurds have called for countries to repatriate their nationals, but most have only allowed limited returns, citing security concerns.
Kurdish leaders announced in February that they would work to empty the camps of displaced Syrians and Iraqis by the end of 2025, in coordination with the United Nations.
Syria is led by a coalition of Islamists who overthrew President Bashar Assad in December, taking power after more than 13 years of devastating civil war.

 


Israel accuses UK of turning ‘blind eye’ to terrorism over possible recognition of Palestinian state

Updated 30 July 2025
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Israel accuses UK of turning ‘blind eye’ to terrorism over possible recognition of Palestinian state

  • No ‘token recognition’ will change the fact ‘there are those in the world who fight terrorists and extremist forces, and then there are those who turn a blind eye,’ says Israeli envoy
  • British PM Keir Starmer says UK will recognize Palestinian statehood unless Israel ends war and ‘appalling situation’ in Gaza, and commits to achieving a 2-state solution

DUBAI: In response to a three-day international conference at the UN headquarters in New York on a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and an announcement earlier in the day by UK authorities that they are considering official recognition of Palestinian statehood, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said on Tuesday: “Israel has already agreed many times to a ceasefire.”

In a message posted on social media platform X, he added that no “token recognition” or UN resolution would “change the basic fact that there are those in the world who fight terrorists and extremist forces, and then there are those who turn a blind eye to them” or pursue appeasement.

He added that Israel would not waver after the “Hamas atrocities” of Oct. 7, 2023, and would do “whatever is necessary to bring home the hostages and defeat Hamas.”

His comments came hours after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK would officially recognize the State of Palestine during the UN’s General Assembly in September, unless Israel takes action.

He said: “So today, as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the UK will recognize the State of Palestine, by the United Nations General Assembly in September, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.”

Starmer also demanded that Hamas release all hostages, agree to a ceasefire, accept that it will play no part in governing Gaza, and commit to disarmament.

Speaking on the second day of the conference in New York, which was co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and France, the UK’s foreign minister, David Lammy, said that it was “with the hand of history on our shoulders” that the British government “intends to recognize the State of Palestine when the UN General Assembly gathers in September … unless the Israeli government acts to end the appalling situation in Gaza, ends its military campaign, and commits to a long, sustainable peace based on a two-state solution.”

French President Emmanuel Macron previously stated that France will officially recognize the State of Palestine during the upcoming General Assembly.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it rejected Starmer’s demands. It accused the UK of rewarding Hamas and harming “efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages” by “following the French move and internal political pressures.”

Israeli authorities continue to reject any form of Palestinian statehood. On Monday, Danon said the UN conference “does not promote a solution but rather deepens the illusion.”