I have only visited one court out of (historical) curiosity, and that was Room 600 of the Nuremberg Courthouse. Smaller than it appears in the monochrome images of the time (when it was temporarily enlarged to accommodate prosecutors, judges, lawyers, journalists, performers and the public), it still impresses with its sober spaciousness. Immortalized in documentaries and films, its green marble porticoes over the doors through which war criminals entered the hearings are unmistakable. There judgment was passed against an aberration internalized as necessary by its perpetrators and executed in domestic conditions enviable by the hierarchs, as Jonathan Glazer portrays in The Zone of Interest. International criminal law as we know it today was born in this room.
No matter how many demonstrations are called and no matter how many articles are written, in order to prevent crimes of this magnitude the dissuasive element of international criminal justice is essential, despite the fact that it is often perceived to be ineffective in the face of the impunity that the offending countries tend to deploy . In March 2022, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), “aware of the magnitude of the human tragedy”, issued an order for Russia to immediately cease military actions on Ukrainian territory, which had begun a month earlier. Since its jurisdiction is denied when it matters (as Russia has done), it is tempting to think of international law in the terms used by a diplomat: “A law that the wicked do not obey and the righteous do not enforce.” Nevertheless, due to its aspiration to be a bulwark against the excesses of states, it must be defended, also from skeptics.
In a recent conversation with the writer and lawyer Philippe Sands, we commented that behind the conception of three of the categories of crimes over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction (more recently) curiously there were jurists of origin Jew: Raphael Lemkin (genocide), Hersch Lauterpacht (crimes against humanity) and Aron Trainin (crime of aggression). Tel-Aviv must embrace this universal legacy, born of moral ruin, and comply without delay with the precautionary measures that the ICJ has demanded of it, following the lawsuit for genocide in Gaza presented by South Africa.
