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With vacancy atop UN high court, pro-Israel activists laud body’s vice president

Julia Sebutinde is a “brave and honest woman,” who “is a beacon for us all,” wrote May Golan, an Israeli minister.

Newly-appointed judge of the International Court of Justice, Julia Sebutinde, of Uganda, is sworn into the court, inside the Peace Palace’s Great Hall of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands on March 12, 2012. Credit: Gerald van Daalen/U.N. Photo/ICJ/ANP-in-Opdracht.
Newly-appointed judge of the International Court of Justice, Julia Sebutinde, of Uganda, is sworn into the court, inside the Peace Palace’s Great Hall of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands on March 12, 2012. Credit: Gerald van Daalen/U.N. Photo/ICJ/ANP-in-Opdracht.

Following Nawaf Salam’s resignation on Tuesday as president of the International Court of Justice—the U.N. court in The Hague—pro-Israel eyes are on Julia Sebutinde, the Ugandan jurist who is vice president on the court and who has defended the Jewish state amid accusations that it committed “genocide” in Gaza.

According to the court’s statute, the U.N. Security Council will set the date when it and the U.N. General Assembly will elect Salam’s successor, who will complete Salam’s term, which ends on Feb. 5, 2027.

Some who lauded Sebutinde referred to her as a shoo-in for the presidency.

“I congratulate judge Julia Sebutinde from Uganda on her appointment as president of the ICJ, with the hope that she will restore this institution to its historic role in promoting human rights in general and women’s rights in particular, rather than the antisemitic platform to which her predecessors dragged it,” wrote May Golan, the Israeli minister for social equality and women’s advancement.

“This brave and honest woman is a beacon for us all, with her integrity and moral values,” Golan added.

International Court of Justice
Members and registrar of the International Court of Justice in the Japanese Room of the Peace Palace in the Hague in July 2024. Credit: Frank van Beek/U.N. Photo/ICJ-CIJ.

Arsen Ostrovsky, the CEO of the International Legal Forum, wrote that “on a bright note, with pro-Hezbollah Lebanese judge Nawaf Salam leaving his role as president of the ICJ to be prime minister of Lebanon, the new ICJ president should be current vice president and brilliant jurist, Julia Sebutinde, who bravely opposed every single measure against Israel.”

Honest Reporting Canada stated that it is “great news” that Sebutinde, “who recently made headlines for her robust defense of Israel against South Africa’s false genocide allegations, is set to assume the presidency of the ICJ, marking a significant pro-Israel shift for the court.”

In July, Sebutinde was the only member of the court to dissent on all four counts in its non-binding, 83-page opinion declaring Israeli “occupation” of Judea and Samaria to be “unlawful.”

In May, she wrote in a dissenting opinion that “to maintain its judicial integrity, the court must avoid reacting to every shift in the conflict and refrain from micromanaging the hostilities in the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.”

“It is also regrettable that Israel was required to respond to a question posed by a member of the court over the Jewish Sabbath,” she added in the opinion. “The court’s decisions in this respect bear upon the procedural equality between the parties and the good administration of justice by the court.”

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