 Maria, thank you so much for having me. It's a delight. And Maria and I have known each other for a very long time, but haven't seen each other in a while. So it's nice to see old friends, even if virtually. So thank you so much for having me. Today I'm going to go through basically about the Genocide Convention in International Court. So I'll give you a brief refresher on the Genocide Convention. We'll talk about some of the international criminal courts and tribunals use of genocide. And then I'm going to focus a bit more on the International Court of Justice. Before I get started, however, I do want to acknowledge that this morning for me, it is early morning for me, I'm speaking to you from the lands of the Minnesota, Makoche, the homelands of the Dakota Ayate Indigenous people. I would also like to acknowledge that usually my usual role at the University of Western Australia is based on Wojak Nunga country. And I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging there as I retain that connection to country. Let's go back in time. Go back to the 1940s after World War II. And a Polish jurist called Raphael Lemkin had seen the Armenian Genocide in the news in 1915. And he and his Jewish family had been affected by the Holocaust and fled his homeland. Raphael Lemkin wondered, why do we have a crime that makes it illegal, makes it unlawful to kill one person? And we don't have a crime for the killing of hundreds or even thousands or even millions of people. And so he thought about this and he brainstormed. And he created the word genocide. So genocide is a neologism. It's a concept that's been around since the dawn of time, but there was never a word for it. And it's Raphael Lemkin who created that word, genocide. So I always think it's really important to remember this and important to think about the fact of what one person can do, because Lemkin was one person. And not only did he create this word for such an important and heinous crime, but he was then motivated to lobby for a treaty to prevent, to outlaw this crime. And he spent a lot of work doing this. He went to New York and he was known as a little bit crazy because really he was so passionate about this and he worked so hard to get countries to collaborate and to come up with a new treaty. And that treaty, he was successful. That treaty was the 1948 genocide convention. So we basically have this convention because of one person, Raphael Lemkin. Now the content of the treaty was not exactly what Lemkin had always theorized genocide was, it was as treaties always are a compromise between the countries that were present and negotiating the text of the treaty. However, we still have that treaty. So I just wanna go through a couple of the main and relevant provisions of the genocide convention to what I'm gonna be talking about today. Of course, the most prominent and important part of it is the definition of genocide. Again, this is pretty much the main part of the convention that didn't actually conform with what Lemkin had defined as genocide in his works. However, it's the definition that we have today. So we find that definition in the genocide convention but it's the same definition in the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court. There was no editing, no changes made to this definition when the Rome statute was drafted. So article two of the genocide convention says that genocide is acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethical, racial or religious group. And it then lists several acts that are committed to commit genocide, killing members of a group, causing serious mental or bodily harm, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. They also added in article three which not only talks about essentially the commission of genocide but also other peripheral crimes. So conspiracy to commit genocide, attempts and complicity but also the direct and public incitement to commit genocide. So those are essentially the crimes that were put into the convention and defined there. However, I also wanna draw your attention to three relevant articles when we're thinking about the genocide convention in international courts. So the first one is really important because this is where it outlines state parties obligations under the convention, namely to prevent and punish genocide. So that's obviously the most, really the most important part of this convention because that very clearly says what states are obligated to do. Article six says that persons who were charged with genocide shall be tried by domestic or international criminal courts. And that's really important for, I'm going to go a little bit over the involvement of international criminal courts and tribunals. And by having genocide prosecuted in international criminal courts and tribunals, by creating those tribunals, that is states complying with their obligations under the genocide convention. So even though we think more broadly about these courts and tribunals about being about transitional justice, accountability for states that are party to the genocide convention in helping to set these up in cooperating with these international courts and tribunals, they are also complying with their obligations under the genocide convention. And finally, article nine says that disputes under the genocide convention shall be submitted to the international court of justice. And so I'm going to be talking to you about the cases before the ICJ under the genocide convention. But first of all, I want to have a very, just a brief overview. I'm going to focus on the ICJ today. So I'm only going to give a little bit of an overview about how genocide has been prosecuted in international criminal courts and tribunals. First of all, and really most obviously is the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda. And this was focused, this was created to prosecute the genocide that took place in Rwanda in the 1990s. And in fact, pretty much everybody that was indicted, if not everybody before the ICTR was charged in some way with genocide. So that may have been commission of genocide, it may have been complicit in genocide, or it may have been, for example, direct and public incitement to genocide. So that tribunal indicted initially 93 individuals, there was a total of 87 genocide charges. And in the end, they had 61 total convictions come out of that. There were a number of prominent cases in the ICTRs, in all of those many, many, many cases. So I've listed some of those there on the slide. For example, the case of Akayesu where they looked at superior responsibility, but they also looked at rape and the role of rape within genocide and defined rape. There were also cases, the media cases that came about were quite significant because they looked at direct and public incitement to genocide. And so this was really a development of that particular way of committing acts related to the crime of genocide. So the case law coming out of the ICTR has been quite significant in defining different aspects of genocide and further developing the definition of genocide more generally. We also have the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia. So they're a slightly different setup to the ICTR and the ICTY. The others were set up by through UN Security Council resolutions, but the ECCC is a hybrid court set up as the title implies within, it's a specialist court within the domestic courts of Cambodia and has half international and half domestic staff working for the ECCC. So there have not been very many cases before the ECCC, unfortunately. And the reason for that is the pressure of the Cambodian government on the tribunal. So unfortunately, there was only one case, case 22, that was brought with charges of genocide against Nguyen Chea and Q Sampong. So they were both charged with genocide against the Cham Muslims and the Vietnamese. This was despite the fact that the prosecution well, tried to argue for genocide committed against the Khmer people. And in my opinion, that should have been that a convict part of the conviction as well. So both of them were convicted of these crimes of genocide. In 2019, one year after the conviction was brought down, Nguyen Chea passed away. So Nguyen Chea's legal team tried to argue that because Nguyen Chea's appeal could not be completed after Nguyen Chea's death, that they should vacate the conviction. And essentially the court gave short shrift to that and said, well, no, there's a conviction and it will stand. So that conviction stands. Q Sampong went forward with his appeal and in September 22, that conviction was upheld, including for the charges of genocide. So these were charges against two of the minority populations in Cambodia at the time, the Chan Muslims and the Vietnamese national population there. So that was based on religious group and a national group. The ICTY also had genocide charges, although surprisingly few given how many people were charged and how many people were tried through the ICTY. All of the convictions that came through the ICTY were only for the crimes committed at Srebrenica. So in charges of genocide for other areas, other locations in Bosnia, the court did not find the necessary intent and so did not convict. So there were, this wasn't like the ICTY where things were generally more a bit of a slam dunk. Here, there were only seven people who were convicted in the end before the ICTY, including the significant leaders such as Karadzic and Miladich. They also had one person, Blagojevic, whose conviction was overturned on appeal. There were others who were charged with genocide, but they pled guilty to crimes against humanity and then the charges of genocide were withdrawn. There were also two people who were charged with genocide but died before their trial could be completed, including, of course, as everyone famously knows, Milosevic. And then there were five others who were acquitted of genocide, including the famous case that many people know about of Jelisic, which was the one that discussed the idea of the lone genocide there. Finally, looking at the International Criminal Court, there are no convictions yet. There is only one genocide charge that has so far been brought by the International Criminal Court against Omar al-Bashir for genocide committed in Darfur. So he is the only person charged with genocide at the ICC to date. Even other cases related to Darfur don't include charges of genocide. So al-Bashir obviously remains at large. He has not been surrendered to the ICC. And even though after the change in regime in Sudan, even though there had been an indication that they might have been intending to surrender him to the court, that hasn't happened. And it's kind of died away so it's unclear whether or not that may happen in the future. So that's something to keep an eye out for, to see whether the ICC actually proceeds with genocide charges. Okay, so let's have a look at the International Court of Justice. So there have only been so far five contentious cases before the ICJ under the Genocide Convention. There has also been, however, an advisory opinion which was issued in 1951, which was about the question of reservations to the Genocide Convention. And under that advisory opinion, just to give the quick nutshell, the court looked at this convention that doesn't actually have a provision on the subject of reservations. And it said that even though it doesn't have that, it doesn't follow that reservations are prohibited. And so instead, what needs to be looked at is the character of the convention, its purposes and the existing provisions. They all have to be taken into account. And they said, essentially, it is the idea of the compatibility of any reservation with the purpose of the convention that has to consider the attitude of state parties with regards to whether or not they agree with this reservation, allowing the state to be bound and to be part of the convention. So essentially the court said that every state was free to decide for itself whether the state that had formulated a reservation to the convention was or was not a party to the convention. However, I wanna move mostly, I wanna focus on the contentious cases because obviously the reservation was more issues of public international law more broadly. And I want to look at how the court has actually implemented the Genocide Convention and contributed to the development whether positive or not of the definition of genocide and the application of this convention. So I'm going to look only briefly at the first two cases because I really want to focus on the current cases, mostly that of before the court. The first contentious case is Bosnia against Serbia and the ruling of which came down in 2007. Now echoing the ICT-wise judgment and in fact, the court drew very heavily on ICT-wide judgments. The ICJ found that there was genocide committed as Srebrenica, but not elsewhere geographically. So again, limited that commission of genocide. So what are some of the important things that came out of this case? Firstly, it looked at this idea of whether or not it was actually unlawful under the convention for states to commit genocide. So Serbia presented this argument that, oh, well, the convention doesn't actually say we not to commit genocide. So that's okay if we committed genocide, which is quite an extraordinary argument. And the court obviously said, well, okay, the Genocide Convention does not per se in its text obligate states to not commit genocide. But of course the court then went and looked at the purpose of the Genocide Convention, which is to prevent and punish genocide. And they determined that that article, Article I, obligating states to prevent and punish genocide, the effect of that is to prohibit the commission of genocide. And so therefore this obligation to prevent under Article I implies a prohibition on commission of genocide. So I think that was still an important statement for the court to make in terms of interpreting the convention, even though of course the argument to say that the Genocide Convention doesn't obligate states not to commit genocide seems quite absurd. At least that was knocked on the head by the court. So quite an important one there. They also talked about this idea of the obligation of the prevention of genocide. And this is really important as well, because obviously it's completely, again, absurd to think that the obligation to prevent genocide arises only when we are already in the middle of a genocide because you're not preventing anything, it's already underway. So the court found that this obligation to prevent genocide arises at the existence of a serious risk of genocide. So before the genocide takes place. Now, as all genocide scholars say, genocide is a process, not an event. So I would actually argue that in fact, what the court is talking about a serious risk is actually where we would be when the genocide process is already underway, but we haven't necessarily reached the stage of mass killings and mass physical violence at that point. So the court also said that this obligation to prevent genocide only requires the suspicion of preparing genocide or else a reasonable suspicion that the specific intent to commit genocide exists. So that's the special intent, if you remember from the definition, the intent to destroy in whole or in part, known in legal terminology as the dolus specialis. So if there is a reasonable suspicion of that, so that's the bar, reasonable suspicion of genocidal intent, then states are on notice that they have an obligation to prevent genocide. Now, the third one that I wanna discuss is really, really, really problematic. So the court said that this special intent to prove genocide can be shown, one of the ways it can be shown is a pattern of conduct by the perpetrators, and in this case, obviously by the state. So no problem with that, that's obviously a really sensible and logical way in which you can show the special intent to commit genocide. However, the court said that such a pattern of conduct has to be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent. So the court said it has to be the only inference that you can draw from this conduct. And it said essentially there can be no other form of intent. And this has been highly criticized by scholars because of course, I'm gonna use the word observed again because it's a legal absurdity. No one has ever heard of this high level of intent before a requirement. And if you think about domestic crimes, people can commit a domestic crime with multiple intentions. And so it's a concept that has never been put forward before in criminal tribunals or other tribunals. So this one sets the bar far too high. And those of us talking about it I really in hope that the court going forward is not going to continue to apply this requirement because it sets the bar far, far too high. And we all know that genocide can be committed in peacetime or during armed conflict. However, it is often committed during armed conflict. And that means that there is a higher chance that there will be other intents related to the conduct of the perpetrators because they may be within the context of armed conflict. So that's why the legal absurdity of this decision, it's really quite shocking and it's gonna create challenges like really big challenges going forward and almost an impossibility for the court to make a conviction of genocide, well, to, sorry, to make a finding of genocide. So a related case, a similar case was Croatia against Serbia which came down in 2015. In this case, there was no finding of genocide but the cases got some really problematic aspects to it. I'll start by saying with the third one I've got on the slide here is that the court followed Bosnia and Serbia and also said that genocide must be the only inference that could reasonably be drawn. So that's two cases in which the court has said that. So again, I reiterate that I really hope going forward the court is going to move away from that requirement. But a couple of other problems that came out of that case is that firstly, the court said that thinking back to the definition of genocide, one of those acts was committing serious bodily or mental harm and the court said that the commission of serious bodily or mental harm must contribute to physical or biological destruction of a group. That's not a requirement within the definition of genocide. So again, this is something that makes no sense as to why an additional requirement was added to this. And again, it sets the bar much higher because then you have to not only assess whether serious bodily or mental harm took place but it also then has to be assessed whether or not that harm actually contributed to the physical or biological destruction of the group. And if it doesn't, then according to this ruling from the ICJ, well, then that's not a crime of genocide. So another highly problematic issue. The other one, which is again, really problematic is that the court, so remember the provision says one of the acts of genocide is imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Now the court said that the parameters of this are that the measures intended to prevent births must actually affect the capacity of the group to procreate. Again, this is imposing on this act an additional element that doesn't exist in the wording of the definition. So this says imposing measures intended to prevent births. That doesn't indicate the way that court has interpreted it. It would be that instead it was phrased as imposing measures that prevent births within the group. So they have completely reworded it. And I just, it kind of blows my mind that they made this kind of completely, out of the blue interpretation of this. And again, I'm really hoping that going forward when the court is addressing this that they move away from this additional element that they have added on that doesn't exist in the definition of genocide. And to me is quite an erroneous, thinking about the interpretation of a treaty. To me, this is quite an erroneous interpretation. Hey, so let's have a look at the current cases before the RCJ. So it's quite exciting actually that there has been such an uptick recently in the use of the genocide convention and the enforcement of the genocide convention. I'm really pleased that states are embracing the genocide convention and enforcing the genocide convention when they are seeing that a state has violated their obligations under the genocide convention. So let's have a quick look through the three current cases. So the first one is the Gambia v Myanmar and this was brought in 2019. So the Gambia started the case claiming that Myanmar is in violation of its obligations to prevent and punish genocide due to the commission of genocide against the Rohingya people within its territory. The Gambia then requested provisional measures and in January of 2020, they were the ICJ delivered provisional measures order. Under that order, they ordered Myanmar to first of all, prevent the commission of acts under the genocide convention to ensure that they're military but also any other armed groups because there are many, many, many armed groups in Myanmar do not commit genocide. They ordered them to prevent the destruction of and ensure preservation of evidence of any crimes that could possibly fall under the convention and to submit regular reports to the court. Now, before I wanna move on a little bit more about that, I do wanna make clear that very problematically they have submitted those reports, well, apparently but the court has not made any of these public and this has received significant criticism including from Rohingya, you know, the victim group because they don't know what's in them. So it's difficult to see what is Myanmar claiming that they have done to comply with the provisional measures order. And there's no reason for these reports to be not made public. And so there are a number of people, Mike Becker has written about this on opinion Eurus and there are a number of people calling for these reports to be made public so that everyone can assess, you know, what are the claims of compliance with this order? Now, the provisional measures order also looked at some general issues. So first of all, it said that, you know, due to a common interest, any state party to the genocide convention can bring a dispute to the ICJ even if they're not affected. So this was essentially the first time the court had to deal with this issue because of course, in the Bosnia and Croatia cases against Serbia, those were two states who were alleging they had been directly affected. They were the victims of genocide. So here, of course, the Gambia was not affected. They're not an affected state. But the court found that the obligations under the genocide convention are aga omnes and that there is this common interest to prevent and punish genocide between all the parties to the convention. The court also found that it is plausible. So that is the standard that they're looking at under the provisional measures stage. It is plausible that there are violations of the genocide convention being committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya and that the Rohingya constitute a protected group under the genocide convention. So then we skip ahead to 2022 when the preliminary objections judgments came out and of course, it was the usual arguments from Myanmar that the ICJ did not have jurisdiction. And the short version of that is that the ICJ found that it did have jurisdiction and so the case will move forward. Interestingly, in November 2023, so not that long ago, there were seven state interventions in this case. So that was the Maldives, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. So those states intervened. I essentially, I'm gonna say on the side of the Gambia but of course their interventions are simply related to the interpretation of the convention. Next up, the fascinating case of Ukraine v Russia. So Ukraine instituted proceedings in February 2022 only days after Russia invaded Ukraine. So this is a really different case and it's not an allegation that Russia is committing genocide but it is an allegation that Russia is not applying the genocide convention in good faith, that Russia is abusing the genocide convention. So this is based on Russia's false allegations that genocide is being committed in Ukraine and they are using that as a justification for their invasion of Ukraine. That they are allegedly freeing the people of Ukraine from genocide taking place. So Ukraine is arguing that this is an abuse of the convention. They're saying that one party cannot be subject to another unlawful action based on a wholly unsubstantiated claim by that state of preventing and punishing genocide. And they're arguing that by doing so, Russia is actually undermining the object and purpose of the genocide convention. So what Russia Ukraine has asked for in this case is for the ICJ to declare that no genocide has actually taken place in Ukraine and therefore that Russia cannot take action because it's a false claim. They've asked them to declare that Russia's invasion has no basis in the genocide convention because of that. They also want assurances of non repetition and full reparation for damage caused. So it's quite a significant request from Ukraine. So where are we at in this case? And I'm, this is very current case at the moment. So in March, 2022 provisional measures were issued by the court and these were slightly different because of the different situation compared to the Gambia and Myanmar. So first of all, the court said that Ukraine has a plausible right not to be subjected to military operations by Russia for the purpose of preventing and punishing and alleged genocide. If that's false. They also ordered Russia to suspend, that should read suspend not suspect, sorry, suspend their military operations. So that's very different to other provisional measures that have been issued because the situation is different because in this case, the allegations are that the operations are being conducted because of an abuse of the genocide convention. They also ordered military and other armed groups to not contribute to military operations and also to refrain from any action which may aggravate or extend the dispute or make it more difficult to resolve. Now, obviously Russia has not complied with these provisional measures orders. There's no reports in this case, but we all know and are very well aware that the conflict is still ongoing in the territory of Ukraine. What is really interesting about this case is that there has been an unprecedented number of states intervening in this case to support Ukraine. 32 states intervened in this case, which is just in obviously interventions are not unheard of, but this number of states is unprecedented. So I think that's really positive to see so many states invested in the importance of upholding the genocide convention and calling violations of the convention to account. So in September, they had preliminary objections hearings in this case and immediately at the end of this webinar, today on the 2nd of February, the court is going to issue its preliminary objections ruling. So as soon as we're done here, I'm going to be slipping into that. Now I'm wary of time, so I'm gonna move on to the last case that I'm talking about, which is the current South Africa against Israel case. So this was brought in December, only in December last year, so very, very recent by South Africa against Israel, alleging that Israel is in breach of its obligations under the convention with regards to the Palestinians in Gaza. It also, like the Gambia, had done requested provisional measures and only very recently, only last week, the court issued a provisional measures order in which it found that it was plausible that there are violations of the genocide convention by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza. That Palestinians are a protected group under the genocide convention, as they had done in the Gambia Myanmar case. And they continued to support this idea that any state party to the genocide convention can bring a case under the convention, under this idea of aga onness. And interestingly in this case, even Judge Zway agreed with this, despite the fact that she has disagreed with that in previous cases related to the genocide convention and the convention against torture. So there was great support for that concept coming out of this particular provisional measures order. So what do these provisional measures order Israel to do? They have to take, they're very similar to the ones against Myanmar. They have to take measures to prevent the commission of genocide, ensure that their military does not commit acts of genocide. But they've also added that Israel has to take measures to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement of genocide. And this was a measure that even the ad hoc judge appointed by Israel, Judge Barak, was in favor of as well. He was also in favor of the next order, which is that essentially Gaza has to, excuse me, ensure humanitarian aid is provided to the Palestinians of Gaza. Similar to the Myanmar order, they also have to prevent the destruction of and ensure preservation of evidence related to any allegations of crimes related to genocide. Now, there has also been an order for reporting, but this is slightly different to the Myanmar one. Rather than regular reports, the court has ordered one single report to be submitted by Israel within one month of the issuance of the order about their compliance with the order. In terms of interventions, there has been an indication that there may be potential interventions. We don't know definitively yet. It's usually later when they happen. Germany has indicated there may be indications from Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and I mean, Palestine is obviously interested, but their legal ability to do that because of their statehood status is obviously questionable. So unlikely they will intervene. So that is the status of the three current cases. I'm wary of time, so I'm gonna wrap up there, but those are our three current cases before the International Court of Justice, and so there's a lot to watch out for. And so keep your eye out in the news for all of that coming forward, including today, as soon as this webinar has finished. Thank you. Can you hear me? Thank you very much, Mel. This was an extremely comprehensive introduction, presentation, and actually even and characterization of the different cases, not only before the International Criminal Court, but also especially before the International Court of Justice that we have seen this extreme hyperactivity, I would say, with regard to the Genocide Convention, especially after 2000, after the Bosnia, the initial Bosnia case, I invite now all the audience to raise question. You can use the Q&A, but also you can raise your hand if you want and you will be unmuted. It's a great opportunity. I have questions, but I would like to give priority to the audience who'd like to take the floor and maybe put a question on the Q&A. Oh, I can see there's already a question in the Q&A from Dr. Rosalie Clark. Rosalie, I mean, this is a great question. So Rosalie has asked about the implications of the state interventions, you know, considering how one case has 32 interventions and what does this say about the politicization of the convention? I mean, first of all, I think it's great, as I said, that states are intervening and it's really positive. But at the same time, I absolutely agree with you that there is totally a political element as to which cases they have chosen to intervene in. You know, clearly 32 states intervening in Ukraine is because we have this clear, you know, so to speak bad guy in the form of Russia. And so everybody is happy to intervene in that. And I think that contrasts so significantly with the South Africa Israel case with there has been such a, you know, a different response and thinking about the states that intervened in the Ukraine-Russia case, but also now in the Gambia-Myanmar case who have had such weak responses to the South Africa Israel case and are essentially stepping back and saying actually very little. Countries, for example, like Canada and Australia are particularly being criticised at the moment because their response has been, we are not involved in the case. That's really what they're saying and pretty much nothing else. So I absolutely think that it is politicised in what states are choosing to do. And I think what is going to come out of that is the hypocrisy of states. So looking at what they have each put in their intervention documents, like what they are arguing about the genocide convention in one case and why they don't think that that argument is relevant to another case is totally absolutely political. So, you know, it's going to be really interesting going forward. And obviously at the moment, we don't, as I said, we don't really know who's going to intervene in South Africa Israel. And there's still, of course, the option for more states to intervene in Gambia-Myanmar. So I would say to everyone to, you know, keep your ear out for that and see what happens and look for analyses of what people are saying. You know, what have these states said in their Ukraine interventions? Why are they not intervening here? Germany will be a really interesting one to look at to see what is different in their intervention in the South Africa Israel case compared to their intervention in the Ukraine-Russia case. You know, is it contradictory? For example, you know, are they are they going to be contradicting their own arguments about the genocide convention? So that's, yeah. Oh, there's a few questions. Maria, do you want to... Yeah, yeah, I think I can help you with that. There is a question by Nur about the crisis in Serbia case, what was the purpose of changing the language, you know, if you know behind that. Honestly, I wish I had an answer for that because I don't know. And, you know, everyone who is critical of this also honestly can't understand it. They don't actually give a reasoning for that. You know, there's one paragraph where they say this, that's it, one paragraph where they say, you know, for example, about the genocidal intent has to be the only intent inferred from the conduct. They don't say why that has to be the case. So I think this is a really key example of some of the very problematic issues that we find sadly all too frequently with the ICJ. I mean, it's great that we have the ICJ and, you know, we are better off with it than without it. But I think it's really problematic when they make decisions and they don't tell you why they've made that decision. And this is one of them. So, Nur, I wish I had an answer, nobody knows. Okay, the next, Mela will help you with that. The next is about the definition of genocide, whether you consider whether it's inappropriate, narrow, and whether it needs to be widened. I think, so obviously, sorry. I'm not sure whether I've woken up yet. It's very early in the morning here. So I think that, you know, as a lawyer, obviously I rely on the genocide convention definition. But in genocide studies, genocide studies is a very multidisciplinary field. So we have people from all disciplines that work in genocide studies like sociology, history, political science, international relations, memory studies, and so on. So there are a lot of people who have looked at, essentially, broader definitions of genocide. So because I have looked at a lot of those and worked in interdisciplinary scholarship, I think that there are ways that the definition, as it exists, can be interpreted in a less narrow way than it sometimes has been. So I think we can work, because I did not see any time soon the definition being changed, whether in the convention or in the Rome Statue. But I do think that there are ways that it can be creatively interpreted to not be so narrow. As an example, and I'm gonna do a plug here, sorry, a self-serving plug in my book From Discrimination to Death, I argue that the refugee phase is part of the genocide process and that the perpetrators of genocide should be prosecuted for the experience of refugees because it's foreseeable by the perpetrators that huge numbers of people will end up as refugees and end up in terrible conditions where they are subject to illness, disease, communicable diseases, where they don't have access to adequate medical supplies, to adequate food. So often people as mass refugees end up experiencing serious health issues, even death, lack of safety and security, and that, so that to me is a creative way in which we can look at what is part of the genocide process and what can we prosecute. So I think there are ways of doing it with the definition that we have. Thank you, Mel. The next question, I have three questions for now. Still, yes, yes. So the next question is whether you can elaborate on the lack of call for ceasefire from ICJ in Israel case based on the request, one of the requests for provisional orders by South Africa. Yeah, and I see that question is from Tom. Hey, Tom, great to see you here. Yeah, so part of this, so looking back at the Gambia Myanmar case, there was also no call related to ceasefire in that. And part of it is that they're working within the genocide convention, so they are restricted by what is the text of the convention and what can they work with within the convention. And so there isn't a link to armed conflict within the convention. So legally it's essentially very difficult for them to do it. The reason that they did that in the Ukraine-Russia case is because it was the crux of the case under the convention. So it was Ukraine arguing that Russia is violating the convention by misusing it, by misapplying it, and the result is an invasion and a conflict against Ukraine. So that is the difference. I will say though that in thinking about the orders that were made, the concept of a ceasefire is still there. So just because the order doesn't actually state the words that you must stop military operations, because first of all, they were ordered to not commit acts under the genocide convention and they were ordered to ensure humanitarian aid access. In thinking about not committing acts under the convention, to do that, Israel will absolutely have to change how it is conducting the war in Gaza. Because what the court said was as the war is currently being conducted, that is a plausible risk of genocide or it is plausible that there are violations being committed under the convention. So in a roundabout way, they have talked about this, they have actually ordered that changes need to be made. In addition, in thinking about ceasefire, basically whenever you see statements from humanitarian aid workers and officials, they are saying that it is impossible to deliver aid to the people of Palestine without a ceasefire, because the conditions of the conflict are making it impossible for them to deliver the aid. And so therefore again, ceasefire is in there even if it isn't directly worded that way. So I think there are ways that the court has still essentially put it in there without it being a direct order. Thanks Mel, for that it's very interesting because just before you started your webinar, I had a short discussion with the calling and we were talking about different ways of reading the provisional order as well, requires a bit of legal thinking, critical legal thinking of course. Now there are some two more questions here and I have two questions. So I urge the audience if they have more questions to put it in the Q&A. One is from Janet regarding the judges and the precedents, and the question is that the judges, the ACJ justice are not bound by decisions of their predecessors. However, how likely do you consider that they can frequency the basic, that there are narrowness, yeah. Oh, Janet, I wish I had a definitive answer for this because I'm really hoping that it's likely, I'm hoping that because of the criticism that came out against the previous judgments that they will move away from all of those things that I mentioned coming out of the Bosnia and Croatia cases. But I mean, it's interesting if you think about because we're talking about two cases that were 2007 and 2015. So there was already quite a gap in there and there was already time for them to change that decision, particularly thinking about the specific intent requirement and they didn't do that. So I do have a concern about that. However, there is going to be, there has been and there is going to be a change on the bench. We're about to see in February, new judges come in. So there will be a bit of a change. And honestly, I hope that that will contribute to a different way of looking at the genocide convention and moving away from those problematic interpretations that I talked about, fresh eyes, fresh interpretations. And hopefully they have read the criticisms that legal scholars have made. And I also, of course, hopefully the states that are bringing the cases, the Gambia and South Africa will actually put that as part of their legal argument in the merit stage that shouldn't be the way that the court interprets genocide. So fingers crossed. Thanks, Mel. There is one more question on the Q&A regarding the ICJ views with about claims of genocide against non-state actors. Well, of course the ICJ can only adjudicate disputes between states. So it has no standing to assess claims of genocide by a non-state actor directly. The way that they could, that could be brought before the court is by looking at the commission of genocide by non-state actors within a state party and holding that state party accountable for not preventing that non-state actor from committing genocide. That would be a way that the court could deal with that. But of course a lot of people who don't work in the field have been saying, well, why is Hamas not being brought before the ICJ? And that's because only states can be parties to the case. So obviously we have, and I didn't mention, because it's sort of a different thing, but the International Criminal Court is investigating through the situation in Palestine which they have been looking at since 2014. So I would absolutely foresee that there will be charges against Hamas of some kind brought before the ICC once they have gathered up all the evidence. So they have jurisdiction through Palestine. So any crimes by anyone committed in the territory of Palestine or by Palestinians outside Palestinian territory. So obviously the court has a lot of work to do with the investigations because we're always talking about mass atrocities and that is a huge amount of evidence that is required. So this is not going to be tomorrow and to be honest, for the sake of all of our workload in the field, I hope not. Give us a couple of weeks, but it's not going to be tomorrow but I would definitely foresee these kind of charges. So I think that's where we really see in the International Criminal Court and any ad hoc tribunals, non-state actors being held accountable. I'm going to use a little bit now. My opportunity as a chair here and I want to ask you to think which I think reflect a little bit things you touched upon already while you answered some previous questions. One of them was you highlighted the high level of intent required by the court when it goes to the substance, to the merits of cases, especially something that you cited, the Serbia case and the Croatia case where it is almost the way I interpreted your argument almost impossible to reach that very high, to prove this very high threshold. And I was wondering maybe if you would like to reflect about the role a little bit of the court, we are talking about the International Court of Justice that deals with interstate disputes and how that could affect its role when it comes to, or its function when it comes to genocide convention which we always know, we talk about the crime of crimes, about stabilization of interstate disputes. That's my first comment question. My second question is about the invocation of the genocide convention before the ICJ and you mentioned the jurisdiction on closing in article nine of the genocide convention. And then there is some critique and debate about the invocation of genocide convention or instrumentalization of the genocide convention in order, is it maybe a way, I'm talking about the critique, is it a tool, a way to stop hostilities, for example? And I was wondering also your thoughts about that and I have one more questions about the Argaumnes parties which is not only the genocide but also we saw the Syria, the cat convention and how it was used invoked by Canada and Netherlands. Do you think that, can we talk about the different instrumentalization of conventions with Argaumnes obligations and how do you think that could add a feather burden on the ICJ or not? So these are more general questions about, thank you. Okay, well, that's a lot. You may have to repeat the first one when I come back to it. So, in thinking about Argaumnes, I mean, this is only a special, you know, it doesn't apply to all conventions. You know, it's only been used for the genocide convention and the convention against torture because of what those conventions prohibit which are two very significant crimes and human rights abuses that have long been agreed to as being egregious, as being, you know, essentially crimes against the entire community of the world. And so that's why that Argaumnes obligation comes within those. So I don't think it's going to suddenly be some kind of obligation that proliferates in many different treaties. So I don't think there's kind of a floodgates thing that we need to worry about too much. But the court has been really, really supportive of the Argaumnes part as obligations under those two conventions. So, you know, this is obviously something that they see as a really critical part of those two particular conventions and what they seek to achieve, you know, the prevention and punishment of genocide and torture. So, you know, it has really, with the exception of the South Africa Israel Provisional Measures has really only been judged way who has been against it. So I think that shows a consistency amongst how the judges feel about this particular obligation with regards to these two conventions. And, you know, I said there's been an uptick, but at the same time, I can't imagine that we'll suddenly have, you know, huge amounts of cases being brought. But at the same time, I would like to see states use the genocide convention more, you know, because it's there and it exists. Okay, you're going to have to remind me now. What was the first question again? The first was about the intent, the high threshold of to prove intent, you know, and I was wondering that, can that be read as well via, yeah. Yeah, whether or not it's going to be, yeah. I mean, it's just, in essence, will it make the genocide convention a useless tool? Because if you think about this, even with this threshold of special intent being the only inference, even possibly the Holocaust may have not been found to be genocide under that, you know, because they could argue, for example, that Germany was also doing this because they were looking for Leibn's realm, you know, for the territorial domination. And, you know, and all sorts of other things that they could, Germany at the time could have possibly argued that this was why they were doing that. So, you know, it's hugely problematic. And it's, you know, there are, you know, I've been talking about it this week with colleagues because there's a great concern that that provision will essentially render the genocide convention useless in a way. And, you know, thinking about your second question about the use of the convention as a tool to, I guess, impact conflict. I mean, obviously genocide doesn't have to be committed in armed conflict, but it often is. You know, the Armenian genocide was, the Holocaust was. So, you know, if we end up in a situation where the ICJ can essentially never make a determination that genocide did take place, that a violation of the convention took place because of this intent requirement, our state's then simply going to use it as the interim preventive tool just for provisional measures to be ordered. And then even knowing that by the time they get to the merit stage, they're unlikely to succeed with their allegations because of that high threshold. I mean, I just, yeah, I really, I can't emphasize enough how much that I really hope in these cases going forward, the state, the ICJ changes its interpretation and no longer requires that high level of intent. It, you know, it, yeah. Okay, I don't think I missed any of the Q and A's until unless someone just for one or more minute, you know, would like to take the floor and ask the final question if this is okay with you, Mel. Would someone like to take the floor at the end? I don't know, I don't think so. I don't see actually anyone. Well, Mel, I would like to thank you very, very much on behalf of the World Crimes Research Group for this very, very interesting comprehensive analysis for explaining so clearly within 40 minutes, all the different elements of the Genocide Convention and how has been invoked and applied for international courts and tribunals. And actually for this very interesting for your personal insight about the problems you identified with the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice. I see Professor Gao that he has a question. If you're still with us, Mel, James, you have the floor for the final question and maybe afterwards we cannot wrap up. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Sorry about that. I was struggling to get my hand up on the thing. I hate these things. I want to go back to the threshold test if I may. And I'm sorry, I know you were really finishing, but I really wanted to ask the question. In effect, what's happened through the jurisprudence in the criminal tribunals is that they've said that the only way of showing intent is by substantial, whatever that means, factual commission of the crime, which is clearly beyond intent because intent lies at many points before you've killed 5,000 people. And it's a physical, so they look at physical destruction and they look at a threshold that perhaps around 5,000 people. Now, can you think of any way, given all the things that you've said, and I appreciate so much of what you said, that an argument could be devised, that could persuade judges that you don't have to wait for the crime to be committed quite substantially before you actually can get a conviction or a verdict for the actual little crime, which is the intent, you know? And in the Yugoslavia cases, they dismissed Gona and Yelisic, describing themselves as the Serbia Adolf, that they dismissed Karadžićers, the Muslims will be annihilated as mere rhetoric and you can't infer intent from these rhetorical statements and from other things. So there's a great big gap between what you're quite rightly saying is the crime in theory and the practice of courts. Is there any way that we can get away from this substantiality threshold of actual commission to determine the intent? This is a great question and thank you for enabling me to plug my book a second time because actually this is exactly what I argue in my book. So in my book, I look at the whole genocide process but from a human rights lens. So I look at all the different human rights violations that form the process. And my argument is that if you think about the cases that we've had in the past, they're all focused on the killing. That's essentially really the main part that they prosecute. But my argument is that all of the process, and I'm not saying the lead up to genocide, I'm saying it is part of the process because perpetrators can't just start killing people. That is not the way genocide works. They have to do all of the other things before they actually get to the killing because that's what makes the killing acceptable to the majority population and enables them to be able to carry it out. So all of that that happens before the killing is part of the genocide process and falls within one or more of the listed crimes of genocide. And I argue that if that is there, then we should still prosecute those actions as well. But also that, you know, I think that the process that I show is particularly useful as what I call a midstream prevention tool, maybe not so much early, but midstream, you get to a point where you say, hang on, we really are in the genocide process now and take action then before we get to the killing and say you're in this process and here's all the types of things that you've done, you know, particularly by that point you're talking about serious bodily and mental harm. You may be talking about prevention of births. You may be talking about the start of imposing conditions of life intended to bring about physical distraction. So maybe that physical distraction hasn't happened yet but you've imposed those measures. And so we should be using those and as a way of actually not only afterwards prosecuting them but using prosecutions of those kinds, that kind of conduct as a way of preventing the escalation of the process to the ultimate end where we see things like torture and killing as part of that end process. So yeah, I absolutely believe there's a way to argue that. Excellent. So on that note, I would like to thank you, Mel, very, very much for almost 45 minutes. It's very early still in Minnesota. I think now it's eight o'clock in the morning and we have to jump to the ICJ process. Yeah, we'd love now to watch and live tweet the ruling. Exactly, the ruling on the preliminary objections. Thank you very much once more for joining us so early from Minnesota and for this extremely comprehensive presentation and for responding to all our questions. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person soon and I would like also to take the opportunity to thank Liz once more for accommodating all this discussion. Liz, thank you very, very much and thank you all for being and asking questions. I'm looking forward to seeing you all in our next seminar or webinar. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you and thank you for hosting me. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you very, very much.