Lack of military expertise may hamper South Africa’s ICJ application
10 January 2024
South Africa’s ICJ team has been widely acclaimed for their comprehensive expertise and meticulous arguments. However their application to the ICJ appears to be missing legal expertise in the fields of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as well as the modern day restatement of IHL which applies in an air and missile context.
It is alleged twice in the 84 page ICJ application that Israel is said to be dropping ‘dumb’ (i.e., unguided) bombs on Gaza, as well as heavy bombs weighing up to 2,000 lbs (900 kgs), which have a predicted lethal radius “of up to 360m”, and are expected to cause severe injury and damage as far as 800 metres from the point of impact. This weaponry is being deployed in one of the most densely populated areas in the world, where approximately one in every 100 people has now been killed.
The IDF’s usage of “dumb bombs” is argued to be a compelling circumstance which requires the indication of provisional measures. The South African legal team hopes to use this argument in order to ask the court for provisional relief from the IDF’s continuing combat operations against Hamas.
In December 2017, I published an international law research paper on missile defense systems in the South African Journal of Military Studies. An important part of the research was the legal framework which underpins the use of missiles in armed conflicts. An essential aspect is the categorisation of missiles - they are either ballistic or guided.