A video of the case that Nicaragua has brought against Germany at the ICJ for allegedly facilitating genocide in Gaza has been taken out of context. The Cube investigates.
ADVERTISEMENTA video has been circulating on social media falsely claiming to show a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, ordering Germany to withdraw its support for Israel.
But not only are proceedings ongoing, the person in the video isn’t even a judge.
In early March, Nicaragua filed a case against Germany at the International Court of Justice, alleging that Berlin is complicit in genocide in Gaza through its political and financial support of Israel.
Germany has vehemently denied the allegations.
Since then, the video has appeared on Instagram and other social media networks, supposedly showing an ICJ judge calling on Germany to immediately suspend its aid to Israel.
The German-language caption says that Germany has been "condemned", implying that the court has already passed judgment in the case and ruled against Germany.
This is misleading.
To begin with, while the man in the video is speaking at the ICJ in relation to Nicaragua’s case, he’s not a judge. Instead, he’s the ICJ’s registrar, Philippe Gautier.
He has a range of duties, including judicial ones, such as managing court proceedings and documents, but he’s not the judge presiding over the case.
The text he’s reading in the video is a series of provisional measures that Nicaragua has asked the court to order, rather than a judgment.
These include orders for Germany to suspend its provision of military equipment to Israel, and to do what it can to ensure German weapons already in Israel aren’t used to contribute to the alleged genocide.
It’s worth pointing out that he’s speaking English in the video. Journalists from Euronews’ German service have verified that the translated subtitles are generally accurate, even if the video as a whole has been taken out of context.
The video itself is real and was filmed as part of Nicaragua’s case against Germany; it’s simply been miscaptioned. The full version can be found on the ICJ’s official website.
The clip in question starts at roughly the 9:53 mark, and is clearly framed in the full video as being a list of requests from Nicaragua. The ICJ’s president Nawaf Salam asks the registrar to read out the requests to the court, who then explicitly notes he is quoting from Nicaraguan court filings.
It’s also wrong to suggest this is a court ruling, because the ICJ is yet to rule on the case.
It recently published a statement affirming that the public hearings on the matter had finished and that deliberations had begun, adding that it will deliver its verdict in another public hearing on a yet-to-be-decided date.