As soon as I heard the verdict of the International Court of Justice last week and heard the vote of 15-2 against Israel, I knew it had to be a woman. Who else could stand up to 15 men and vote with the old Israeli man?
With an 11 page defense she explained why the trial was political and not judicial. And who was she facing? Judges from Morocco, Lebanon, Somalia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Slovakia, Uganda, India and Jamaica, some of whom are not totally objective about Israel. And I doubt they were happy about this opposition.
Even though the court is urged to represent “the main forms of civilisation and the principal legal systems of the world,” there are only four women justices. One of them, Hilary Charlesworth, has written a great deal about women’s rights, but she seemed not to have taken in the mass rapes and mutilation of women on October 7, or the shameful absence of protection of women in Gaza. With 650 miles of tunnels there should have been a few places for women to give birth. As someone who was born underground in London during the WWII bombings, and who has been planning all activities for the past months with the proximity to public shelters in mind, I am very aware of the responsibility of government to protect its citizens. The fact that the majority of victims may have been citizens who were not fighters indicates that they were the first line of defense.
So I began looking up Justice Sebutinde and, even though I have a serious case of covid and my mental capacity have been reduced to weeping over romantic Polish movies on Netflix, it was difficult to miss the negative reactions her judgement invoked in the press. For example, although all her official bios note she’s been serving in the world court since her appointment in 2011, Al Jazeera says 2021 (citing the year of her re-election for a second term). And the Ugandan government has distanced themselves from her and said her opinion was her own. But everything she said in an eleven page statement was logical and simple and clear. “South Africa has not demonstrated, even on a prima facie basis, that the acts allegedly committed by Israel … were committed with the necessary genocidal intent and … are capable of falling within the scope of the Genocide Convention.” She was not only voting against the charges but she was clearly deciding the charges had no basis.
What is true is that our politicians have said we’ve got to wipe Hamas out, and while I hated their rhetoric (and hated the politicians for that matter), The basis for the existence of Hamas is the eradication of the Jews. As much as I dislike all our politicians’ rhetoric, their response was not directed to all the residents of Gaza, but to the perpetrators of a brutal massacre and their supporters. This can’t be classified in any way as genocide.
To paraphrase Thoreau “any woman more right than her neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.” For her logical mind in the face of an unthinking majority, I’d like to see Justice Sebutinde go far in this world. Maybe she can straighten us all out.