Gaza represents a breaking point in the historical journey of humanity, where a global system based on power, not justice, prevails.
We are witnessing the total failure of the organised international community to implement international law in the most severe, visible case of genocide in real time.
Encouraged by the South African precedent, which also mobilised and organised the “peoples of the world” in an anti-Apartheid campaign to isolate South Africa, the aim of the Gaza Tribunal is to awaken civil society to its responsibility and opportunity to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The ICJ and the ICC have so far acted professionally, not succumbing to the geopolitics exerted by the Security Council and, to a lesser extent, the General Assembly of the United Nations, but the judgements from these Courts depend on the political will of the Security Council to be enforced, which, at present, seems unlikely.
The Gaza Tribunal is an effort to close this enforcement gap by exerting civil society pressure on governments to act. The tribunal can also be seen as one symbolic battleground in the legitimacy war that has been ongoing for more than a century between Israel and Palestine.
The Tribunal contributes to the legitimisation of an alternative paradigm of international law, one that derives its authority from people and their sense of justice rather than relying solely on governments and their institutions.