Beyond their very pointed arguments, Germany and Nicaragua had at least one thing in common at the April 8 and 9 hearings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. In a document filed to the ICJ on March 1, Nicaragua accused Germany of "facilitating the commission of genocide" in Gaza by the Israeli army and asked the Court to order the suspension of its arms exports to Israel. But before getting to the facts, lawyers and diplomats on both sides of the courtroom's "great hall" claimed a special connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war between Israel and Hamas.
At the opening of the arguments on Monday, Nicaragua's ambassador to the Netherlands, Carlos Argüello, recalled that his country has "been subject to intervention and military attacks for most of its existence and feels empathy for the Palestinian people." The diplomat and lawyer was referring in particular to US support for the Contras, an armed group fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
"Our history is the reason why Israel’s security has been at the core of German foreign policy," said Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, Germany's chief diplomatic law expert, responding to Nicaragua on Tuesday. "Germany has learned from its past," she added, "a past includes the responsibility for one of the most horrific crimes in human history, the Holocaust. This explains one of the principles upon which our foreign policy with regard to all Middle East issues rests."
The day before, the Nicaraguan ambassador had responded preemptively to this argument. "The Israeli state, and particularly its present government, should not be confused and equated with the Jewish people," declared Argüello. He said he understood Germany's support for an appropriate response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in southern Israel, which killed 1,170 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages. But "Germany seems not to be able to differentiate between self-defense and genocide," he added.
"Germany is not legally responsible for the hell that has broken out in Gaza," said French lawyer Alain Pellet, arguing on behalf of Nicaragua. "Or rather, it is only responsible for its own failure to meet its own international obligations in relation to this appalling situation. And it is responsible insofar as its failures have made possible, or facilitated, the serious violations of fundamental norms of general international law committed against the Palestinian people, not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the occupied territories and in Israel itself." "No one is the owner of the genocide trademark," the lawyer continued, "and no state, neither Israel nor Germany, can free itself from the fundamental rules of international law."
You have 37.04% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.