Nicaragua sues Germany for cutting off aid to Palestinians
The international treaties that create the "Courts of Justice" that should regulate relations between states are increasingly revealing themselves as a banal instrument of political struggle.
Nicaragua has filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice against Germany for providing financial and military aid to Israel and for canceling contributions to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) , the country's top court said on Friday. United Nations.
Nicaragua has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ ), also known as the World Court, to issue emergency measures requiring Berlin to stop military aid to Israel and to reverse its decision to stop funding UNRWA.
The German Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Court usually sets a date for a hearing on requested emergency relief within a few weeks of the case being filed. However, in this case a country is certain of determining the foreign policy of another country, with a democratically elected government, through the courts and, beyond the individual case, it is a very serious event.
According to Nicaragua's request, Germany is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the laws of war in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“ By sending military equipment and now deforesting UNRWA, which provides essential support to the civilian population, Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide ,” Nicaragua said in its legal documents.
UNRWA's major donors, including the United States and Germany, suspended funding after allegations that around 12 of tens of thousands of Palestinian employees were suspected of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
Nicaragua's request adds that the emergency measures were necessary due to Berlin's "participation in the plausible ongoing genocide and serious violations of international humanitarian law" in the Gaza Strip.
This request is based on South Africa's lawsuit against Israel over the alleged genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Last month the International Court of Justice said South Africa's claims that Israel had violated the Genocide Convention were not implausible and ordered emergency measures, including calling on Israel to halt any potential acts of genocide in Gaza . Israel has denied charges of genocide and said it had the right to defend itself.
According to the Genocide Treaty, countries not only pledge not to commit genocide, but also to prevent and punish any genocide. Furthermore, complicity in genocide and attempted genocide constitute a violation of the treaty.
At this point the International Court of Justice becomes the political instrument with which some countries try to impose their international policies on others, under the pretext of applying international law. The funny thing was that, initially, the ICJ was designed as a tool to impose certain Western values, but now it has become the tool for developing or emerging countries to impose their policies on Western countries.
What will Germany, led by a left-wing government, do against the accusations of a country that is certainly not a champion of democracy? Can a democratic state decide to whom it must legitimately give or not give money, or must it be imposed by a court of justice? The very existence of international courts of justice from the ICJ to the ECJ is, in the end, the greatest legal threat to democratic states.
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The article Nicaragua sues Germany for cutting off aid to Palestinians comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-nicaragua-fa-causa-contro-la-germania-per-linterruzione-degli-aiuti-ai-palestinesi/ on Mon, 04 Mar 2024 09:00:39 +0000.