Inside three months of instituting proceedings towards Israel within the case regarding the Software of the Conference on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide within the Gaza Strip, South Africa made three requests for provisional measures (right here and right here): the primary request led to the indication of six provisional measures (Order of 26 January 2024 (“first Order”)), the second was refused by the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (“the Court docket”) (Determination of 16 February 2024), and the third resulted within the indication of recent measures in addition to some modifications of the Court docket’s earlier Order (Order of 28 March 2024 (“second Order”)).
Within the third request, South Africa sought the “indication, clarification and/or modification” of among the measures indicated within the first Order (Request, para 17). Whereas Articles 75 and 76 of the Guidelines of Court docket (“the Guidelines”) permit the Court docket to point provisional measures and to subsequently modify or revoke such measures, the Guidelines are devoid of specific provisions regarding requests for clarification of provisional measures indicated. Neither did South Africa’s request clarify the authorized foundation for requesting clarification, nor did the Court docket’s Order handle this particular request. The Court docket thought-about South Africa’s request as a request for modification and regarded whether or not there had been a change within the scenario for the reason that first Order to just accept this request (Request, paras 13 and 17). Counting on its authority beneath Article 75, paragraph 2 of the Guidelines, the Court docket indicated measures not equivalent to these sought by South Africa (second Order, paras 42-43).
