The interventions illuminate the legal issues the court will be facing at trial. One key issue is what constitutes the mens rea, or the mental threshold, of the crime of genocide. According to Namibia, the court may infer the required genocidal intent based on the scale, systematic nature, intensity, duration, and repetition of acts listed in Article II of the Genocide Convention. It is also Namibia’s contention that other acts, such as forced displacement, starvation of civilians, and repeated killing of children, are relevant, if not compelling evidence, in determination of the required genocidal intent.

On the other hand, Hungary, Fiji and the US asked the court to maintain a high threshold in inferring genocidal intent from a “pattern of conduct.” They contended that the court may only rely on such criteria when the pattern of conduct is so unambiguous that genocidal intent is the “only reasonable inference.” Hungary argued that the Genocide Convention drafters intended a narrow scope for the crime of genocide, such that its exceptional gravity is distinguished from other internationally wrongful acts and breaches of international humanitarian law. Hungary warned that any attempt to broaden the scope of criteria for genocide risks blurring that boundary and opening the floodgates to politicized litigation.

Apart from the mental element, Namibia argued that the crime of genocide can be committed by either action or omission, including failing to provide life-sustaining necessities or withholding humanitarian assistance.

Fiji stressed the context of urban warfare. The nation called on the court to consider the deliberate use of civilian infrastructure by combatants  to maximize civilian casualties when the other party takes military actions. Fiji warned that if the court decides to include such military actions in the crime of genocide, this could expose states to genocide charges when they participate in peacekeeping missions, criminalizing actions that would be legitimate but for a terrorist organization’s strategy of using civilians as shields.

Fiji also urged the court not to allocate special probative status to UN reports, arguing that these reports rely on secondary sources that are not necessarily accurate and are not disinterested witnesses. In September 2025, an independent UN commission concluded that the Israeli forces have committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Earlier this week, the Netherlands and Iceland also filed declarations of intervention. The Netherlands called upon the court to lower the threshold for “serious bodily or mental harm” when the victim is a child. Iceland warned that the “only reasonable inference” standard should not render inferring genocidal intent effectively impossible.

The court has invited South Africa and Israel to file written observations following these submissions.

From JURIST, March 14. Used with permission. Internal links added.

See our last reports on the ICJ case and genocide accusations against Israel.

Photo: ICJ

Ecocide has had little focus from policymakers, despite the severe environmental emergency facing the planet. Defending the environment is a risky business in many places, as new research from the Global Witness campaign group shows: 2,000 environmental activists—often from indigenous communities—have been killed since 2012, with 196 murders in 2023. There were 79 such killings last year just in Colombia, which was by far the deadliest country for green activists, as environmental struggle intersects with the dynamics of te country’s long-running armed conflict. Environmental activists are, however, making inroads in another conflict zone, with Greenpeace opening an office in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

From The New Humanitarian, Sept. 13.

See our last report on the initiative to make ecocide an international crime, and our feature, “Environmental War Crimes in Ukraine.”

Global Witness also found last year that Colombia led the world in slaylings of environmental activsts. The record has also been held in recent years by Brazil and Honduras.

Photo: Stefan Müller via Wikimedia Commons

Most of the protesters are reportedly from the island of Malaita, where people have long complained of neglect by the central government. Settlers from Malaita have increasingly been moving to Honiara, on the central island of Guadalcanal, for work over the past generation. This had led to tensions between the Malaita islanders and the “Guales,” which erupted into violence in 1999, with a four-month state of emergency imposed.

Malaita’s provincial government also strongly opposed the central government’s decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China. The Solomons were among a dozen Pacific island states that recognized Taiwan until the 2019 “switch,” as it is locally known. Taipei accused Beijing of using “dollar diplomacy” to sway small countries in the region to shift recognition. In the lead-up to the “switch,” Chinese firms poured investment into the Solomons, especially for roads and other infrastructure to revive the mothballed Gold Ridge mine on Guadalcanal. There was even a bid, ultimately rejected by the central government, for Beijing’s China SAM Enterprise Group to lease the entire island of Tulagi as a port facility.

Malaita’s premier Daniel Suidani meanwhile issued an “Auki Communique” (named for the provincial capital) dissenting from the switch, and barring all Chinese investment from the province. The Communique played to social conservatism, citing the “Christian faith” of the local population and the “atheist ideology” of the Chinese state. Suidani also pointedly traveled to Taiwan this June for medical treatment—a trip condemned by the central government as “unauthorized.”

Sogavare responded to the uprising by saying it had been fomented by foreign powers with an “evil intention” to topple him, adding that they have a “very big…influence. I don’t want to name names. We’ll leave it there.” But there was little doubt he was talking about the United States and Taiwan.

Only 15 countries around the world now continue to maintain diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. (Reuters, AP, AP, NYT, WaPo, SCMP, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, The Guardian, Asia Pacific Report)

A few observations… First, it is maddening that (yet again) doubtlessly legitimate economic grievances are being siphoned off into pointless xenophobia. Even if those grievances are in part linked to Chinese neo-mercantilism in the Solomon Islands, venting deadly rage on Chinese immigrant shop-owners is ugly scapegoating that only serves to delegitimize the uprising. That said, it is certainly a perverse historical irony to see China treating the Solomon Islands the same way the Great Powers of yestercentury treated China during its “Century of Humiliation“—a point we have made before.

As for the diplomatic angle at work here, we will point out that if it weren’t for the absurd “One China” fiction, governments could recognize both Taiwan and the PRC. If the long taboo on this solution is now eroding in Taiwan, it is more of an entrenched dogma than ever in Beijing.

It is a final irony that Australia, now notoriously spatting with China, is basically serving here as Beijing’s regional enforcer. This responsibility falls to Australia because it is officially under the same sovereign (Queen Elizabeth) as what had been until 1978 the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. So the remnant structures of British colonialism are now effectively serving the interests of Chinese neo-mercantilism. For all the resurgent inter-imperial rivalry, the contemporary world powers ultimately have everything invested in “stability”—the uninterrupted functioning of the global capitalist leviathan—and will close ranks when push comes to shove. That’s why they call it a Great Game.

Map: University of Texas Libraries

The latest addition to the fast-growing list of countries that have enacted official states of emergency is Cambodia. The measure passed by National Assembly on April 10 is being decried by the opposition as unconstitutionally restricting freedom of expression, movement and assembly. (Jurist) Human Rights Watch is calling it a “recipe for dictatorship.” Even before the law was passed, criminal charges were brought against a journalist—ironically for actually quoting the words of President Hun Sen. On April 7, Sovann Rithy, director of TVFB news site, quoted on his Facebook page an excerpt from Hun Sen’s speech that day: “If motorbike-taxi drivers go bankrupt, sell your motorbikes for spending money. The government does not have the ability to help.” Rithy was arrested and charged wth felony “incitement.” He remains under pre-trial detention. (HRW)

Repression is being unleashed on laborers left in the lurch by lockdowns in several countries. Numerous such confrontations are being reported in India, where hundreds of thousands of impoverished migrant laborers have been left stranded as both their workplaces and cross-country transportation have been ordered closed. Thousands of migrants gathered at the railway station in Mumbai and faced off with police on May 14, demanding to be allowed to travel to their homes in the countryside. April 10 saw riots in Surat, as  protesting migrants clashed with police and set cars on fire. (Reuters, Deccan Herald, FT, UN News)

Such scenes have also been seen in Peru. On April 14, migrant laborers attempting to return to their homes in Huancavelica region from Lima by bus were stopped at a National Police checkpoint in Huarochirí province. A confrontation with police troops ensued when they attempted to continue on foot past the barricades. (Gestion)

A confrontation was also reported April 11 from Pimentel, outside Peru’s northern city of Chiclayo, where army troops arrived to dig mass graves for COVID-19 dead from elsewhere in the country—and were met with protests by local residents. (RPP)

Violence was also reported April 10 from Kenya, where thousands of desperate residents surged for food aid being distributed in a poor district of Nairobi, sparking a brief stampede. Police fired tear-gas and injured several people (AP)

Over 100 arrests were made in Fiji on April 12 for breaches of the government’s restrictions on movement. (RNZ)

In Canada, the RCMP is warning citizens that they will carry out physical checks of private homes to enforce the Quarantine Act, which was invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month. Under the act, violators may be subject to a fine of up to $750,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. (Globe & Mail)

In New York City, a video shared on social media shows police arresting a man on a crowded subway platform—after yelling back at officers attempting to enforce “social distancing,” saying that that the platform was too congested for people to spread out safely. (Streetsblog)

A greater still long-term threat is the imposition of a totalizing surveillance state even under a post-pandemic “normality.” In a growing number of cities and states across the US, local governments are already collecting the addresses of people who test positive for COVID-19, and sharing the lists with police and first responders. (NBC)

Vox conducted a review of plans for re-opening the United States now being prepared by such institutions as the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, the left-leaning Center for American Progress, and Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics. All foresee a “digital pandemic surveillance state in which virtually every American downloads an app to their phone that geotracks their movements.” Those who come into contact with anyone later found to have COVID-19 can then be placed in “social quarantine,” enforced by GPS tracking—as is currently being done in Taiwan.

Forbes reviews cellphone-based tracking methods now being used in Singapore and under study in Europe:

With anonymized and aggregated phone tracking now helping governments fight coronavirus, the next wave of technology will be digital contact tracing. These opt-in applications combine Bluetooth’s Relative Signal Strength Indicator, a duration timer and a masked identifier to timeline those coming into potential contact with new COVID-19 patients. Unfortunately, the apps also require a huge percentage of a country’s population to voluntarily install them to be effective.

This immediately raises the question of how long such measures will remain “opt-in” and “voluntary.”

In Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began, the economy is now starting to come back to life after more than two months of draconian lockdown. But the movement of residents is being restricted according to a color-coded system of cellphone alerts. Those with a green code have freedom of movement and may pass through the frequent police checkpoints; those with yellow are found to have been in contact with an infected person and face continued restrictions; those with a red code are deemed at high risk of being infected, and remain essentially quarantined.  (AP, Reuters, New Scientist)

Federal plans for a similar system may already be seen in the US. Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert with the National Institutes of Health, said last week that US citizens may have to carry documents, dubbed “immunity cards,” to certify they are not infected with COVID-19. “This is something that’s being discussed, I think it might actually have some merit,” he told CNN April 10. (The Hill)

The pandemic has forced the global aid sector to rethink how it responds to disasters when faced with flight cancellations and closed borders. Of course, many Pacific countries are pushing back against heavy-handed international aid surges. But local responders must also adapt. Vanuatu relaxed social distancing measures so people could evacuate as Cyclone Harold approached. Fiji enforced occupancy limits on evacuation centers (and separated general evacuees from coronavirus patients and their close contacts). “We had to weatherproof our COVID-19 containment efforts,” said Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama. Even as Pacific countries start to clean up, the global pandemic continues. Cyclone Harold left Fiji’s waters by April 9; a day later, the country recorded its 16th coronavirus case: a nine-year-old girl.

From The New Humanitarian, April 10

See our last post on the mega-storm phenomenon.

Photo of Cyclone Harold over Solomon Islands: NASA via The New Humanitarian

Foreign Policy notes: “What was apparent at COP25 was a growing gap between smaller, developing countries and major powers, which resisted pressure to commit to emergency action and bolder emissions pledges before the Paris process is implemented next year. Smaller countries had hoped for a financial aid program for those, particularly island nations, already suffering the effects of climate change. That, too, will have to wait for Glasgow.”

Amnesty International said in a statement after the summit closed: “While the final COP25 decision recognized the urgency of enhancing climate action, it failed to set a clear obligation for states to come up with ambitious national climate plans in 2020 capable of keeping the global average temperature rise below 1.5°C. This shows a complete disregard for the human rights of people who will be most affected by spiking climate impacts. For millions of people around the world, the formulation and, above all, the implementation of strong climate plans simply means a difference between life and death.”

Amnesty also stressed the international gap that has emerged on the question: “Wealthy countries are responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions and have for years profited from them, while people in poorest countries are suffering most of the damages inflicted by the climate crisis. In Madrid, they had the opportunity to recognize this historic imbalance and accept their duty to pay for the devastation already wreaked by climate impacts such as cyclones, droughts and sea-level rise. Instead, they opposed the mobilization of new and additional resources to support affected people. This in practice means turning their back to the almost 4 million people who have lost their homes, livelihoods or access to public services in the two cyclones in Mozambique earlier this year, or to residents of Pacific islands in urgent need of relocation due to sea-level rise.”

Amnesty also raised questions about some of the proposed solutions that have now been put off for another year. “[W]orryingly, there was insufficient willingness from states to include explicit reference to human rights safeguards in carbon trading rules. Such guarantees are necessary…to ensure that negative human rights impacts can be assessed and addressed prior to adopting climate mitigation projects and that people directly impacted by carbon market projects have a say in shaping such measures.”

A UN-backed “carbon sequestration” program known as REDD+ sparked protests by indigenous peoples in Peru in 2012, who charged that it was being used to usurp their territorial rights.

Simultaneous with the Madrid summit, Chilean activists convened an international Summit of the Peoples, under the slogan “Save the Earth, change the system.” Its final statement included this admonition: “We reject the adoption of false solutions to climate change, which deepen the crisis and strengthen the model that generates it, such as carbon markets, hydroelectricity and other corporate-based energies, carbon sinks based on tree monocultures and agrofuels, industrial energy generated from forest biomass, incineration, geoengineering and hydraulic fracturing or fracking.” (Global Justice Ecology Project)

Photo: Global Justice Ecology Project

From Jurist, Sept. 6. Used with permission.

Note: Among the projects discussed at the summit was redrafting the 2000 "Biketawa Declaration" on regional security in the Pacific as a "Biketawa Plus," with a greater emphasis on environmental security and climate-related disasters. Under the slogan "We are not drowning, we are fighting," community leaders across the Pacific Islands have been pushing for world action on climate change and adherence to the 2015 Paris Accords. (Radio Australia, Radio Australia, 350.org, Nuku'alofa Times, Tonga)

Photo: 350.org

Indigenous groups claimed a victory at the UN climate talks in Bonn on Nov. 15 as governments acknowledged for the first time that they can play a leadership role in protecting forests and keeping global temperatures within safe levels. Participating governments ("Parties") agreed to create a platform to promote the voices and inclusion of indigenous peoples in the UN climate process, formally known as the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The "Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform" (PDF) states that "Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities," while "Emphasizing the role of local communities and indigenous peoples in achieving the targets and goals set in the Convention, the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and recognizing their vulnerability to climate change."

"This is a victory for indigenous peoples who have always been fighting for recognition of our rights as a way to protect forests and tackle climate change. This is a big advance," said Juan Carlos Jintiach of the Coordinating Body of Amazon Basin Indigenous Organizations (COICA). (The Guardian, Human Rights Watch)

Others were more tempered. Alberto Saldamando of the Indigenous Environmental Network said: "We are not waving the victory flags yet, the local communities and Indigenous peoples platform does not recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples in the human rights sense of the term 'recognize.' It only 'recalls' the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in its preamble."

A statement from indigenous organization It Takes Roots notes the continued emphasis on "carbon pricing" in the UNFCC, calling carbon trading and offsets "fraudulent climate mitigation mechanisms that help corporations and governments to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels."

The Bonn summit, officially COP 23, was chaired by the government of Fiji, a small island nation that views climate change as an existential threat. COP 23 was the first round of climate talks since the US, under the presidency of Donald Trump, announced its intention earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris deal.

In the days leading up to Winston's landfall, thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of Fiji and Vanuatu—due to high water temperatures related to this year's severe El Niño phenomenon. These same warm waters helped conjure Winston and propelled its unpredictable path around and through Tonga and Fiji. (Radio New Zealand, Feb. 18)

And once again… what those who point to El Niño often fail to grasp is that such "natural cycles" becoming more pronounced is precisely how climate destabilization is likely to manifest—or, better, is in fact manifesting. The fact that you can "blame" El Niño doesn't mean we aren't on a trajectory towards an uninhabitable planet…

Just days before Winston hit, Fiji became the first country in the world to formally ratify the Paris agreement on climate change. Fiji, threatened by sea level rise and Pacific mega-storms, takes the issue very seriously—hardly surprisingly. The country plans to move entirely to renewable energy within the next 15 years, and is calling for outside aid to assist this transition. In 2014, the village of Vunidogoloa was relocated to higher ground under the country's climate change program, and 34 other villages are also set to move in the coming years. Fiji is responsible for just 0.04% of global greenhouse gas emissions. (Slate, Feb. 20)

Yet more evidence of the old Marxist saw: Where you stand depends on where you sit.

Several thousand activists marched peacefully near the Arc de Triomphe as the deal was announced—seemingly divided on whether to celebrate or protest. The permitted march was an official exception to a ban on public gatherings across France under the state of emergency instated after last month’s terrorist attacks. It appears authorities relented and allowed the march because of a threat of mass defiance and civil disobedience if they remained intransigent. The previous weekend, indigenous groups from across the world staged a kayak-paddle down the Seine, demanding that indigenous rights be recognized in the new treaty. (NYT, The Guardian, The Guardian)

NASA climatologist James E. Hansen was among those taking a more cynical view of the new agreement. “It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he said. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.” (The Guardian)

Carbon Market Watch offers a more distanced assessment in a media statement. One of the more disturbing (if hardly surpirising) elements is the continuted emphasis on carbon trading. The Paris agreement does call for closing loopholes that have made some carbon trading schemes transparent scams:

The Paris agreement contains several provisions related to carbon pricing and markets. Countries can use and transfer “mitigation outcomes” to other countries, which opens the door to the linking of Emissions Trading Systems. The accounting rules for such transfers will be developed in the coming years and will include guidance on how to avoid the “hot air” trading of bogus pollution permits, including the avoidance of doubled-counted emission reductions. The agreement also obliges countries to promote environmental integrity and to pursue domestic climate measures to achieve their targets, thereby limiting the amount of international carbon credits that can be used.

CMW director Eva Filzmoser added: “We very much welcome that the new market provisions include robust accounting rules and a shift of the new mechanism beyond pure offsetting. However, the new mechanism is very complex so a watchful eye will be required when developing the modalities and procedures in the course of the next few years.”

The accord does include language on indigenous and human rights, but CMW finds it somewhat equivocal:

Following calls from numerous countries that wanted to see human rights recognized in the operative part of the agreement, compromise was found with detailed preambular language that specifies that parties, when taking action to address climate change, have to respect, promote and consider respective human rights obligations. This also includes the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity.

Alberto Saldamando of the Indigenous Environmental Network was unimpressed with the supposed tightening of carbon trading norms: “The Paris accord is a trade agreement, nothing more. It promises to privatize, commodify and sell forested lands as carbon offsets in fraudulent schemes such as REDD+ projects. These offset schemes provide a financial laundering mechanism for developed countries to launder their carbon pollution on the backs of the global south. Case-in-point, the United States’ climate change plan includes 250 million megatons to be absorbed by oceans and forest offset markets. Essentially, those responsible for the climate crisis not only get to buy their way out of compliance but they also get to profit from it as well.” (Indigenous Rising)

Of mainstream environmental groups, the grimmest view of the new accord is taken by Friends of the Earth International, which writes:

The draft Paris deal states that 2 C is the maximum acceptable global temperature increase, and that countries should pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. This is meaningless without requiring rich countries to cut their emissions drastically and provide finance in line with their fair share… To avoid runaway climate we need to urgently and drastically cut emissions, not just put it off.

The Friends of the Earth statement also decries that no actual financial commitments are made to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change:

Without compensation for irreparable damage, the most vulnerable countries will be left to pick up the pieces and foot the bill for a crisis they didn’t create. Without adequate finance, poor countries will now be expected to foot the bill for a crisis they didn’t cause. The finance exists. The political will does not.

Even under the best interpretation, the real test of the Paris agreement will be in its implementation. So even if there is no actual retrogression from Paris if an abject climate-denialist like Ted Cruz takes the White House next year, unrelenting grassroots pressure and activist vigilance will still be mandated. Let’s hope the optimistic headlines will not lead to any relaxing of our rigor…