Plain English
Words these pages use because the court uses them. A few are special to this court, which judges countries and not people, and to the treaty the case is about.
The court
- International Court of Justice
- The United Nations’ own court, in The Hague. It settles disputes between countries, not cases against people. It has 15 judges elected by the UN for nine years at a time, and it’s sometimes called the World Court.
- Genocide Convention
- The 1948 treaty that defines genocide and makes the countries that join it promise to prevent it and punish it. Israel joined in 1950 and South Africa in 1998.
- Article IX
- The clause of the Genocide Convention that lets one member take another to this court over a dispute about the treaty. It’s the only reason this court has the case.
- Judge ad hoc
- A judge a country picks for one case when no judge of its nationality is on the court. They sit and vote with the other judges.
- President of the court
- The judge the others elect to run the court and chair its hearings, for three years at a time.
- Registrar
- The head of the court’s staff. Keeps the record, sits with the judges at hearings, and reads out the French text of a ruling.
- Agent
- The official who speaks for a country in a case at this court, usually a diplomat or a government lawyer. A country can have co-agents who share the job.
- Intervention
- Another country asking to take part. Any member of the treaty can come in to argue how the treaty should be read, and is then bound by how the court reads it. It doesn’t become a party to the case.
The paperwork
- General List
- The court’s numbered list of its cases. This one is No. 192.
- Application
- The document that starts a case at this court. South Africa’s runs to 84 pages.
- Memorial
- The full written case of the country that sued, with its evidence. South Africa filed its in October 2024.
- Counter-memorial
- The full written answer of the country being sued. Israel filed its in March 2026.
- Reply and rejoinder
- A second round of writing. The country that sued answers the counter-memorial, and the other side answers that.
- Confidential pleadings
- The court’s rules keep the written arguments out of public view until the court decides to publish them, usually when the hearings on them open.
- Verbatim record
- The court’s word-for-word record of a hearing, numbered like CR 2024/1. Cited here by page.
- Order
- A written decision of the court on one step in a case. It isn’t the final judgment.
How a case moves
- Provisional measures
- Emergency orders the court can give while a case goes on, to stop harm that couldn’t be undone before the final ruling. They’re binding, but the court has no way of its own to enforce them.
- Plausible
- The test for emergency orders. The court asks if the rights a country wants protected plausibly exist and could be at risk. It isn’t a finding that the accusation is true.
- Prima facie
- At first sight. Before giving emergency orders the court only has to see, at first sight, that it may have power over the case.
- Jurisdiction
- The court’s power to hear a case at all. Here it comes only from Article IX of the Genocide Convention.
- Dispute
- A real disagreement between the two countries about the treaty. It has to exist when the case is filed. Israel argued in 2024 that there wasn’t one yet.
- Admissibility
- Whether a case the court has power over is still one it should hear, for example because of how it was brought.
- Preliminary objections
- A challenge to jurisdiction or admissibility filed early and decided on its own, before the main case. Israel didn’t file one. It put its objections in its counter-memorial instead, so they’re decided with everything else.
- Standing
- The right to bring a case. Every member of the Genocide Convention has a stake in it being kept, so any member can sue another without having been harmed itself.
- Merits
- The main question in a case, as opposed to steps along the way. Here, whether Israel broke the Genocide Convention.
- Judgment
- The court’s final decision. It’s binding on the two countries and there is no appeal.
- Opinions and declarations
- What a judge writes alongside a decision to explain a vote or add a point. A dissent explains a vote against. None of them changes the result.
- Monitoring committee
- Three judges the court set up in 2023 to follow whether its emergency orders are being carried out and suggest to the court what it could do.
The stamp on a ruling
- Granted
- The court said yes to the request on this card, whichever country made it.
- Granted in part
- The court ordered some of what was asked for and not the rest. It words its own orders, so they can differ from what either country asked for.
- Denied
- The court said no to the request on this card and ordered nothing new.
What the treaty says
- Genocide
- Under the treaty, any of five acts done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such: killing its members, seriously harming them, imposing conditions of life meant to destroy it, preventing births, or taking its children.
- The listed acts
- The five acts in Article II of the treaty. On their own they aren’t genocide. They become genocide when an intent to destroy the group is behind them.
- Specific intent
- The intent to destroy the group as such, also called dolus specialis. It has to be there on top of the intent to do the act itself, and it’s what sets genocide apart from other crimes.
- Only reasonable inference
- The court’s test from its earlier genocide cases. Where no plan is proved, intent can be read from a pattern of conduct only if it’s the only conclusion that could reasonably be drawn from it.
- Substantial part
- The part of the group targeted has to be big enough to matter to the group as a whole. The court said in 2024 that Palestinians in Gaza, over 2 million people, are.
- Direct and public incitement
- Openly urging people to commit genocide. It breaks the treaty on its own, whether or not a genocide follows.
- Duty to prevent
- Each member has to do what it reasonably can to stop a genocide once it knows, or should know, of a serious risk of one. It’s only broken if a genocide actually happens.
- State responsibility
- This court judges countries, not people. It can find a state responsible for breaking the treaty. Putting individuals on trial is for criminal courts.
- Law of war
- The rules for fighting a war, also called international humanitarian law. They allow some harm to civilians but forbid targeting them or causing harm out of proportion to the military aim. This case isn’t about those rules.
- Self-defense
- A country’s right to use force when it’s attacked. Israel says its war in Gaza is self-defense. South Africa says self-defense can never excuse genocide.
- Famine
- The worst level on the hunger scale UN agencies and aid groups use, called the IPC. It means extreme lack of food, acute malnutrition and deaths from it, each past a set line.