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CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

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including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council<br />

General Assembly resolutions?<br />

Israel saw the building of the barrier as an essential security measure in the light of the<br />

casualties being sustained from terrorist attacks: more than 900 deaths and thousands of<br />

injuries over the preceding 3 years. To the Palestinians, on the other hand, the security<br />

barrier was an ‘apartheid wall’, severing communities and cutting off many Palestinians<br />

not only from friends and families but from employment and amenities. 94 Whilst<br />

opposing the building of the wall and holding it to be in contravention of international<br />

law, the UK, in common with all European Union states (including those then seeking<br />

accession) opposed referral of the issue to the ICJ, believing it ‘inappropriate to embroil<br />

the court in a heavily political bilateral dispute.’ 95 The US took a similar line. The ICJ<br />

did not bow to pressure and gave its opinion on 9 Jul 2004. 96 Firstly, it decided<br />

unanimously that it did indeed have jurisdiction to give the requested advisory opinion<br />

and, by 14 votes to one, decided to comply with the request. The dissenting judge<br />

(Buergenthal), whilst finding in favour of the court’s jurisdiction, felt it lacked the<br />

evidence on which to reach an opinion on Merits and therefore should have exercised its<br />

discretion in declining to offer one. Again by 14 votes to one, the Court’s opinion was<br />

that construction of the wall was contrary to international law. Unsurprisingly, Israel<br />

rejected the Court’s judgement outright, declaring it the ‘result of a politically motivated<br />

maneuver’ and refusing to ‘accept this politicization of the Court.’ 97 The US reiterated<br />

its earlier position: ‘we do not believe that that’s the appropriate forum to resolve what<br />

is a political issue…’ 98<br />

The message from the Euro-Atlantic states, then, is clear: the ICJ is not the appropriate<br />

forum for deciding political issues. But surely any likely causus belli will be a political<br />

issue so they are denying a role in conflict resolution to this central institution of<br />

international law. Not only, then, will some argue that the institutions of peaceful<br />

conflict resolution are politicized, or risk being so, but the Western world also appears<br />

to be saying that international legal apparatus is not, in any case, the appropriate road to<br />

dispute resolution!<br />

95

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