On July 19, 2024, the UN’s court
rendered an opinion to the UN’s General Assembly on the legality of Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem. The Israeli
government wasted no time in publicly dismissing the International Court of
Justice even though the UN had created Israel. As if the creature is greater
than its creator, which is a rather unbiblical view, Israel’s prime minister
had dismissed two earlier verdicts of that court against Israel’s military incursion
into Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 and displaced over
a million Palestinian residents. What are we to make of international law
itself? Can we rightly call it law even though no enforcement mechanism necessarily
exists for it? By necessarily, I mean something more than a voluntary
coalition of willing countries, which of course cannot be counted upon.
The full essay is at "The International Court of Justice on Israeli Occupation."
