Nicaragua criticized Germany on Monday before the UN’s highest court for its support for Israel, calling it ‘pathetic’ to give arms to Tel Aviv while simultaneously providing aid to Gaza. A table deemed ‘grossly biased’ by Berlin.
Managua filed a lawsuit against Germany asking judges to impose emergency measures to prevent Berlin from providing weapons and other aid to Israel.
Nicaragua’s lawyers have argued that Germany is violating the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, established in the wake of the Holocaust, by supplying weapons to Israel.
Help and equipment to kill
‘It is indeed a pathetic excuse, for Palestinian children, women and men, to provide humanitarian aid, including through airdrops, on the one hand, and to provide the military equipment used to kill them and annihilate them’ on the other hand, declared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Daniel Mueller, lawyer from Nicaragua.
‘Germany does not seem to be able to differentiate between self-defense and genocide,’ Nicaraguan Ambassador to the Netherlands Carlos José Argüello Gómez told the court.
Managua has asked the ICJ, which sits in The Hague, to decide on ‘interim measures’, emergency orders imposed while the court considers the entire case.
‘Germany was and is fully aware of the risks of using the weapons it supplied and continues to supply to Israel with a view to committing genocide against the Palestinian people,’ said Alain Pellet, Nicaragua’s lawyer.
‘It is extremely urgent that it finally suspends the aid and assistance it provides for this purpose,’ he added.
‘Grossly biased presentation’
Germany will respond in court on Tuesday but has already strongly rejected the accusations. ‘We have never violated the Genocide Convention or international humanitarian law, neither directly nor indirectly,’ Germany’s lawyer Tania von Uslar-Gleichen told journalists.
‘On the contrary, Germany is committed to upholding international law and that is why we work at the international level,’ she continued. ‘Nicaragua’s presentation was grossly biased,’ she added.
ICJ: binding decisions, but
The ICJ was created to adjudicate disputes between nations and has become a key player in the war between Israel and Hamas. In another proceeding, South Africa accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide in the Gaza Strip, which the country vehemently denies.
In that case, the court called on Israel to do everything in its power to prevent any act of genocide and recently toughened its stance, ordering additional measures requiring Israel to increase access to humanitarian aid.
ICJ decisions are binding, but the court does not have an enforcement mechanism. For example, she ordered Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine, in vain.
Interim measures required
Nicaragua requested five interim measures, stipulating in particular that Germany ‘immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance, including its military equipment’.
He also asks the court to order Berlin to ‘reverse its decision to suspend funding for UNRWA’, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Germany announced in January that it was suspending this funding pending an investigation into Israeli accusations that several UNRWA personnel participated in the October 7 Hamas attack.
‘This unjustified decision contributes to the suffering in Gaza where children, women and men, are dying of hunger,’ Mr. Mueller told the ICJ.
Berlin rather than Washington
Managua is attacking Germany rather than the United States, Israel’s main ally, because Washington does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, he also explained.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Friday that Israel had “no more excuses” to delay the arrival of aid to Gaza.
/ATS