In December 2023, South Africa instigating proceedings in the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention claiming that Israel’s action in Gaza in response to the October 7 attacks constituted breaches of the Convention. Since then, 30 other states and 4 international organizations have joined the proceedings in support of the South African case. In the demonstrations held across the world against the Gaza war the accusation that Israel is committing genocide is now commonplace. Recently the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel chaired by Navi Pilay has also declared that genocide is being committed in Gaza, a conclusion drawn also by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Senator Bernie Sanders. This seminar seeks to investigate the character of these claims, the definition genocide, the politics of the human rights movement and reflect on the reason for the intensity with which these claims are pursued against the Jewish state.
John Strawson is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of East London. He works at the intersection between law and Middle East studies with special interests in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Islamic legal studies and postcolonialism. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague, Netherlands), visiting professor at Birzeit University (Palestine) and was visiting professor of law at the International Islamic University Malaysia (Kula Lumpur). He is chair of the Hashomer Hatzair charitable trust and is advisory editor of Fathom Journal.
His publications include:
Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2010)
Law after Ground Zero (editor, 2002)
Injustice, Memory and Faith in Human Rights (Co-editor, 2018).
