Pro-Israel judge set to replace Lebanon’s Nawaf Salam at helm of ICJ

Uganda’s Julia Sebutinde has spoken out against UN court’s rulings on Gaza war

Julia Sebutinde, left, has been vice president of the International Court of Justice since last February, serving under Nawaf Salam, right, who is now Lebanon's Prime Minister. Reuters

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A Ugandan judge who has sided with Israel against accusations of genocide in Gaza is poised to become president of the top UN court hearing the case.

The International Court of Justice has a vacancy to fill after its president Nawaf Salam was appointed Prime Minister of Lebanon late on Monday. The court's vice president Julia Sebutinde is the only judge apart from an Israeli to have voted against orders for Israel to restrain its offensive in Gaza.

It is only the second such vacancy in the ICJ's history, after former president Humphrey Waldock died in 1981, at which point vice president Tamsin Elias assumed the top job in The Hague. Former ICJ legal officer Mike Becker said his best guess was that Judge Sebutinde would similarly act as president until the end of Mr Salam's scheduled term in 2027.

"There's enough ambiguity that if they decided they wanted to hold new elections within the court to appoint somebody new as president and potentially then a new vice president also, I think they could do that," Mr Becker, an assistant law professor at Trinity College Dublin, told The National. "But that's never happened before."

Elected vice president last February, Judge Sebutinde would not necessarily hear the main arguments in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel, because ICJ cases typically take years and it may well be past the end of her term in 2027 by the time that stage is reached. She could potentially then seek election as president in her own right.

South Africa has three times asked the court to issue emergency orders to Israel before the full genocide claim is heard. Judges initially asked Israel to do all it could to prevent genocide, then went further by telling it to "immediately halt" its offensive in Rafah, by a 13-2 vote. Only Judge Sebutinde and Israeli appointee Aharon Barak voted in opposition.

Dissenting opinion

In dissenting opinions Judge Sebutinde wrote that Israel had taken "concrete actions" to provide aid to Gaza and that lawyers for South Africa had "not demonstrated" any genocidal intent on the part of the Israeli military. She said the dispute was "essentially and historically a political one" that was not for judges in the Netherlands to settle.

Any genocidal intent is “negated” by Israel’s attacks on “legitimate military targets”, its warnings to civilians and its efforts to provide aid, she said. “A careful examination of Israel’s war policy and of the full statements of the responsible government officials further demonstrates the absence of a genocidal intent.”

The first African woman to sit on the court, Judge Sebutinde also opposed a separate ICJ opinion in July 2024 that found Israel's presence in occupied Palestinian territory to be unlawful. She said the case amounted to a "one-sided forensic audit of Israel’s compliance with international law". The Ugandan government has distanced itself from her views on Israel.

As ICJ president she would preside over hearings at the Peace Palace and wield a casting vote when judges are evenly split. She would also be a "primary driver" of the court's agenda and schedule, Mr Becker said, and head a committee that drafts ICJ opinions – but only when she is in the majority camp.

"Whoever is presiding over the drafting committee has a very significant role in terms of essentially deciding how to structure a judgment, how to approach certain issues," Mr Becker said. "That's quite important – a president can very much choose to highlight or downplay certain issues in how the court approaches a dispute."

The 15-member court has various other pending cases, including on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a fatal plane crash over Tehran in 2020 caused by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nicaragua last year failed in a bid to have German arms sales to Israel blocked by the ICJ, although judges did not dismiss the case entirely.

Vacant spot

Mr Salam's departure for Lebanon also leaves a spot open for a regular judge on the bench. Approached by The National, a court representative referred to rules calling on the UN Secretary General to trigger the procedure for an election. It is then up to the UN General Assembly and Security Council to elect a new member.

By convention, the seats on the court are divided among regions of the world. But in a surprise voting result in 2017, Mr Salam filled a seat that had previously belonged to a group called Western Europe and Others, which includes the US and Australia.

"He [Nawaf Salam] ended up in that seat because of an oddity in the way the voting took place in that round and he more or less ended up replacing Chris Greenwood, who was the judge from the UK," Mr Becker said.

"Traditionally this has been a seat that has gone to a western European state," he said. But "because this seat has been held by a judge from Lebanon, it might be that states from the Middle East feel that this seat now should be held by a judge from the Middle East".