OPINION:
The International Court of Justice is supposed to be the place where nations go to settle matters that could otherwise lead to war.
Yet the International Court of Justice, like the International Criminal Court, is part of the United Nations’ politically oriented court system. This means that although President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are sanctioning and trying to break up the ICC, they should be getting ready to do the same to the ICJ if it tries to redefine the crime of genocide.
The court’s judges are about to use the case of Gambia v. Myanmar, with judgment scheduled to be delivered on Nov. 19, 2026, to redefine the law on genocide. The Gambia appointed Navanethem “Navi” Pillay as its ad hoc judge in 2019, and she recently won the Nobel Peace Prize over Mr. Trump.
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U.N. bureaucrat Ms. Pillay’s only distinction is that she chaired the U.N. commission that accused Israel of having committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. As this column has previously discussed, this is complete fiction. Ms. Pillay has made no contribution to the cause of peace.
You can see where this is going.
Previous international law — consisting of the Genocide Convention of 1948, a result of the Nazi genocide of Jews in World War II — holds that the crime of genocide is defined as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.”
Past ICJ rulings have included the inference of intent, but only where intent to destroy the group “must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.”
In the Gambian and South African cases against Israel, the ICJ could easily adopt the vague standard argued by the Gambian and South African lawyers. They argue that the clear standard should be replaced by a vague, entirely politically malleable one: a range of “facts and circumstances” assessed “comprehensively and holistically,” whatever that means.
The redefinition of genocide will open cases against the U.S. military and other NATO nations. It will make it easy for the South Africans — especially with the help of “judge” Navi Pillay — to make their cases against Israel.
The ICJ is neither competent nor credible in any effort to redefine genocide. It would have to become a legislature to do so, and it obviously cannot. International law on genocide is set out in the 1948 Convention, and that should be the end of it.
Still, it will not be because the ICJ, like all other U.N. “courts,” is a political body. It does not rely on the law or the inherent judgment a court should have.
If, as expected, it redefines the law on genocide, Messrs. Trump and Rubio should move to sanction the ICJ as clearly and certainly as they have the ICC.
Any “redefinition” of genocide is effectively an attack on U.S. sovereignty. We have the sovereign right to enter into treaties such as the Genocide Convention, and no court has the right to modify them.
If the ICJ does so, it would not only confuse the crime of genocide but also clearly require the U.S. government to respond the way it did for the ICC: Diminish its authority and sanction both the court and the principal individuals involved in the matter.
Such sanctions would include barring these people from entering the U.S. and banning all personal and business transactions with them. Mr. Trump will be accused of politicizing genocide, but he must ignore the accusers. He must also ignore the critics who chastise him for sanctioning Ms. Pillay, the person who took the Nobel Peace Prize that he should have been given.
Neither the United Nations, the ICC, nor the ICJ can be trusted with our sovereignty. They are political bodies that cannot usurp the powers of our Congress.
Activist judges should not be tolerated anywhere or at any time.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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