There is no urgent suspicion that Germany is violating international law by supplying arms to Israel. The International Court of Justice in The Hague decided this on Tuesday, rejecting an urgent application that the state of Nicaragua had submitted there last month. The Latin American, authoritarian country had denounced the Israeli warfare in the Gaza Strip, spoke of war crimes and even genocide against the Palestinians – and blamed the Federal Republic for this.
But the evidence for such an accusation was too thin, the court found with a clear majority of 15 to one – and therefore refused to order Germany to temporarily stop its arms deliveries. The court president, the Lebanese Nawaf Salam, stated in his oral justification: The federal government already checks before every export permit whether there is a risk that a weapon will be used for crimes. And as if to prove it: Germany has apparently already significantly reduced its arms exports to Israel on its own initiative.
German arms exports to Israel have declined significantly
The court president calculated: Berlin approved a total of ten times as many arms exports to Israel in 2023 as in 2022. However: While a volume of around 200 million was in the month of October, i.e. in the days immediately after the massacre by the radical Islamic Hamas of Israeli civilians on October 7th, the volume of German export permits had already fallen sharply in November to around 24 million euros. In March of this year, the volume of exports had already fallen to less than one million euros.
It was precisely this critical attitude of Berlin that the representatives of the German Foreign Office themselves presented to the International Court of Justice during the proceedings there on April 8th and 9th. They added that around 98 percent of arms exports to Israel did not relate to war weapons at all, but rather to technical components for military equipment. Most recently it was just a matter of smaller spare parts, for example for radar systems. The actual German-made weapons of war – 3,000 portable rocket-propelled grenades and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for automatic rifles – were approved in direct connection with October 7th and were intended as a contribution to Israel’s legitimate self-defense.
Judge nominated by Nicaragua rules against Germany
The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, is an organ of the United Nations; its 15 judges represent all regions of the world and are elected by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council for a term of nine years each. In this particular case, Nicaragua, which currently does not have any of the regular judges, was allowed to nominate an additional so-called ad hoc judge who was allowed to have a say. This was the former Jordanian Prime Minister, Aoun al-Khasawneh. He was the only one to decide against the majority and spoke out in favor of immediate measures against Germany.
“Germany is not a party to the conflict in the Middle East – on the contrary: we are committed day and night to a two-state solution,” wrote the Foreign Office on Tuesday on the short message platform X. Germany is currently the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. But “the terror of October 7th started this new spiral of suffering against which Israel must defend itself,” it continued. The more than 100 hostages held by Hamas were also remembered. Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann described it as “legally correct” that the court rejected Nicaragua’s application. “You also have to know that the country has repeatedly sided with Russia and China in recent years,” wrote the FDP politician on X.
The case before the International Court of Justice is not yet over. On Tuesday only a decision was made about interim legal protection. Now follows, without haste, a trial on the main issue that could take several years. The court is likely to continue to consider the question of whether Germany may have violated international obligations – but for this question it will first ask for possible further evidence and listen to possible further arguments from Nicaragua. In short: Given the current state of knowledge, a legal accusation against Germany is ruled out, according to the court. But he is not yet completely ruled out.