Julia Sebutinde, Ugandan vice president of The International Court of Justice.<\/p>\n
Over the past 18 months, Julia Sebutinde has been clear on her view of the legality of Israeli<\/a> actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n The Ugandan judge, who is the vice president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), stated her legal opinion on two occasions last year.<\/p>\n In January 2024, when a 17-member ICJ panel ruled it was \u201cplausible\u201d that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, Sebutinde was the only judge to vote against all six provisional measures adopted by the court.<\/p>\n Six months later, she was the only dissenting voice when a 15-judge panel found that Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian<\/a> territories was “unlawful”.<\/p>\n She has faced criticism over her positions, including from her own government<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sebutinde spoke publicly on the issue for the first time a few days ago, during an event at Watoto Church in Kampala<\/p>\n \u201cThere are now about 30 countries against Israel,\u201d she told the congregation<\/a>. \u201cThe Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel. The whole world was against Israel, including my country.\u201d<\/p>\n She went on to say that she had a strong conviction that \u201cwe are in the end times\u201d, and that the situation in the Middle East was\u00a0among the signs.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be on the right side of history. I am convinced that time is running out,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The unusual step to speak publicly about her support for Israel has come under the spotlight, particularly from legal experts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is never a good idea for an ICJ judge to share their own views on a pending case in a public forum,\u201d Michael Becker, a professor of law and former associate legal officer at the ICJ, told MEE.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is worse to suggest that your position is to be \u2018on the side\u2019 of a specific party to the case.\u201d<\/p>\n When sworn in, all ICJ judges take an oath committing to exercising their powers \u201cimpartially and conscientiously\u201d.<\/p>\n Becker noted that strong religious convictions are not the problem.\u00a0He said that a judge\u2019s sense of morality or justice, which could be driven by religion, can sometimes inform the proper exercise of judicial discretion.<\/p>\n \u201cBut law creates guardrails and requires judges to justify decisions within the terms of the law, drawing upon recognised sources of law,\u201d Becker said.\u00a0\u201cArticle 38 of the ICJ statute, which sets out the relevant sources of international law, most certainly does not encompass the word of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Sergev Vasiliev, an international law scholar, said it was both unusual and \u201cobjectionable\u201d that Sebutinde spoke about the cases outside the arena of official concurring or dissenting opinions.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch interventions risk creating an impression of (or showing) bias and raise inevitable questions about their ability to adjudicate impartially,\u201d he told MEE.<\/p>\n Vasiliev added that not only must a judge act impartially, but they must appear to do so in the eyes of a \u201creasonable observer\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever \u2018conscientious\u2019 her decisions may have been, Judge Sebutinde\u2019s statement that it is her divine duty to stand with Israel – a respondent state in pending contentious proceedings – calls her impartiality into question,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is hard to see how a reasonable observer could conclude otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n Sebutinde\u2019s dissenting opinion on Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestine already came under severe criticism earlier this year over plagiarism allegations.<\/p>\n A 15-judge panel found that Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was “unlawful” and that its “near-complete separation” of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning “racial segregation” and “apartheid”.<\/p>\n While most judges agreed with the advisory opinion, Sebutinde rejected the findings.<\/p>\n She was later accused of directly lifting sentences<\/a> almost word for word in her dissenting opinion<\/a> written on 19 July 2024, including from pro-Israel sources, a column written by a former US official, as well as from Wikipedia and the BBC.<\/p>\n‘Unusual and objectionable’<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Plagiarism allegations<\/strong><\/h2>\n