UN’s top court rejects call for Germany to immediately halt arms exports to Israel

CNN :  

The United Nations’ top court struck down a demand by Nicaragua that Germany immediately halt its arms exports to Israel on Tuesday, saying it cannot issue emergency measures against Berlin under the current circumstances.

“The court, by 15 votes to 1, finds that the circumstances as they present themselves to the court are not such as to require the exercise of its power under article 41 of the statute to indicate provisional measures,” Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said at The Hague in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

However, the court also rejected Germany’s demand to strike the lawsuit from its list, meaning the case will now move on, a legal process that could take years. The ruling on Tuesday only concerned whether or not Berlin should be ordered to immediately stop selling arms to Israel.

The only judge who voted against Germany was Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, the ad hoc judge chosen by Nicaragua. Countries that do not have a judge of their nationality sitting on the ICJ can chose to appoint an ad hoc judge to join the court for cases that concern them, which is what Nicaragua did with the Jordanian judge.