The top court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, has announced some provisional measures in the case brought by South Africa against Israel about what has been happening in Gaza under the Genocide Convention.

Amid all the commentary, we picked a few elements from the announcement by the court’s president Joan Donoghue and talked them through with Nada Kiswanson, a lawyer who’s been representing Palestinian human rights organisations and around 700 Palestinian victims at the ICC. She also edited the volume Prolonged Occupation and International Law, published by Brill last year. And she’s the MENA program manager at Impunity Watch.

We also mention media expectations of the court’s ruling (a bit skewed, and maybe missing the main issue, we think), current events such as the pause in funding of UNWRA and how these events may be connected to the case at the ICJ, and briefly look forward to the next big Palestine event – also at this court – and ask what impact this interim genocide ruling may have on the International Criminal Court’s investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We’ve previously looked at the UN General Assembly’s request for an Advisory Opinion from the ICJ on occupation here and on South Africa’s genocide case here. And here are some links to some of the informed commentary on the provisional measures ruling: Yuval Shany, Oona Hathaway, Itamar Mann, Milena Sterio and the extended musing of Barrie Sander.

Nada has no time to relax, but she did mention Minor Detail by Adania Shibli as worth reading. It’s not only about life under occupation, but also about the the nature of narratives.

This podcast has been produced as part of a partnership with JusticeInfo.net, an independent website in French and English covering justice initiatives in countries dealing with serious violence. It is a media outlet of Fondation Hirondelle, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.