The Wall

The UNGA passed resolution resolution ES-10/14 seeking for the advisory opinion of the ICJ on
the legal consequence of Israel’s construction of the wall.

One of the laws considered by ICJ was the applicability of the Fourth Hague Convention. The
Court noted that while Israel was not a party to Convention to which the Hague regulations are
annexed. Nonetheless, the Court held that Israel was liable since the 4th Hague Convention were
considered as a customary international law. In finding that the 4th Hague Convention was CIL,
the Court cited the International Military Tribunal in Nuremburg (WW2 Tribunal), Legality of the
Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapon as basis for the conclusion that the Hague Convention had
attained the status of CIL.

The Court also observes that, pursuant to Article 154 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the
Geneva Convention is supplementary to Sections II and III of the Hague Regulations. The provision
which focuses on the military authority over the territory of the hostile State. In the ruling the ICJ
said that Geneva Conventions was applicable in cases where there is partial or total occupation
of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed
resistance.

In this regard, Israel argued that the Convention was not applicable as it required that the
occupied land should be that of a party state. In this case, Israel argued that Jordan was party to
the Geneva Conventions, the construction of the wall had committed on land which did not
belong to any party state. In brushing the argument aside, the ICJ noted that the intention of the
drafters of Geneva Convention IV had been to protect civilians who found themselves, in
whatever way, in the hands of the occupying Power. The Court espoused that the Geneva
Convention shall be applicable when two conditions are met: a) existence of armed conflict; and
that the conflict has arisen between contracting parties. If those two conditions are satisfied, the
Convention applies, in particular, in any territory occupied in the course of the conflict by one of
the contracting parties. (see p. 90)The conclusion was supported by the passage of UN GA
resolutions which affirmed the existence of the same. More so, even the Israel Supreme Court
acknowledged that Israeli military operations in the occupied territory were governed by the
Hague Convention IV and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Thus, the ICJ ruled that the Fourth Geneva Convention was applicable in any occupied territory
in the event of an armed conflict arising between two or more High contracting parties. Israel
and Jordan were parties to that Convention when the 1967 armed conflict broke out. The Court
accordingly finds that that Convention is applicable in the Palestinian territories which before the
conflict lay to the east of the Green Line and which, during that conflict, were occupied by Israel,
there being no need for any enquiry into the precise prior status of those territories.