Holding Israel accountable: What is The Hague Group?

On 31 January, representatives of nine countries convened in The Hague, Netherlands, to declare a global alliance, named The Hague Group, to hold Israel accountable under international law.

It was a historic precedent, marking the first such initiative since the Nakba and the establishment of Israel to coordinate state action to prevent violations of international law committed against the Palestinian people.

The founding members of the group are Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa.

Some of these states have already taken major steps over the past 15 months to defend and enforce international law.

South Africa, for example, brought a landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

Several states in the coalition have later joined South Africa’s case at the ICJ, including Bolivia, Colombia and Namibia.

Additionally, Namibia and Malaysia blocked ships carrying arms to Israel from docking at their ports, while Colombia halted coal exports to Israel. Colombia and Bolivia also recalled their ambassadors from Israel to protest its devastating war on Gaza.

Such efforts, however, lacked coordination, and this is where The Hague Group is set to play a significant role, Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the chair of the group, told Middle East Eye.

Gandikota-Nellutla, who is the co-general coordinator of Progressive International, a leftist transnational political group, said the group has been formed as a reaction to the non-compliance of states with binding international legal obligations.

This is a reference to the pushback by a number of western states against the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, and non-compliance with orders by the ICJ to halt Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention.

“This group really began with the one-year mark of the genocide, and the brazen impunity granted to Israel – from the neglect of the ICJ ruling and the the real defiance of the ICC arrest warrants,” she said.

The Netanyahu arrest warrant was the first in the court’s history to be issued against politicians from a western-allied nation.

According to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC in 2002, all state parties have a legal obligation to arrest and surrender to The Hague those wanted by the court.

But a number of western states that are ICC parties, including France, Italy and Hungary, announced that they would not enforce the warrants if Netanyahu lands on their territory, claiming he enjoys immunity under international law.

The position has been disputed by the ICC, as well as leading immunity experts around the world.

Third-state obligations

The year 2024 witnessed a record number of legal cases in The Hague related to Israel’s conduct in Gaza, including binding orders by the ICJ and the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

For instance, the ICJ issued three binding interim orders in the South Africa vs Israel case. These include orders for Israel to refrain from acts that are prohibited under the convention and to prevent and punish such acts. 

In its first order on 26 January 2024, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention.

As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel to ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians.

Then, following requests by South Africa, the court subsequently issued interim orders on 28 March and 24 May that called on Israel to halt its assault on Rafah and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

In its May order, the ICJ also ordered that Israel ensure that UN investigators could enter Gaza to investigate allegations of genocide.

While the ICJ’s orders were addressed to Israel, third states have a duty under customary international law to prevent and punish genocide, even if it takes place outside their territory, as explained by the ICJ in the landmark Bosnia genocide case in 2007.

That duty can be upheld by inducing Israel to refrain from breaches of the Genocide Convention, and by conducting due diligence to ensure that any exports or assistance do not contribute to punishable acts under the convention.

Additionally, the ICJ in its 30 April 2024 order in the Nicaragua vs Germany case confirmed the obligation on third states to ensure that arms exports are not used to violate the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law.

In another landmark legal development in The Hague, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion on 19 July confirming the illegality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the corresponding legal duty on third states to refrain from supporting the occupation and to ensure Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.

The UN General Assembly in September passed a resolution, with 124 states in favour, endorsing the ICJ’s opinion and demanding Israel and third states uphold their obligations as outlined by the court.

The UN Security Council also passed four binding resolutions during the latest conflict, calling for a range of demands including increased humanitarian access, an end to violations of international humanitarian law and for a cessation of hostilities. But Israel has defied all the resolutions, while the US abstained from backing three of them.

‘Logic of punishment’

In a world where states uphold their international law obligations and enforce rulings by international courts like the ICJ and the ICC, The Hague Group need not have been formed, Gandikota-Nellutla said.

But that’s not the case.

Western states, chief among them the US, continued to provide military and political support to Netanyahu’s government, without regard to the ICJ, the ICC, the UN Security Council or the General Assembly.

The US went even further, with the sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump last week on the ICC and its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

This was part of a “logic of punishment” adopted by the US towards attempts to hold Israel accountable.

“The US and its allies have spent 15 months funding, arming and making excuses for a genocide. Here, their blood-soaked hypocrisy was clear for all to see,” she said.

“Let us be very clear here. It is not a question of the US ‘abandoning’ international law. That it did well before the ICC sanctions of 6 February. It is a question of the US ‘destroying’ any semblance of it.”

For example, she points out that when South Africa brought its historic Genocide Convention case against Israel to the ICJ in December 2023, the US House of Representatives responded by introducing legislation to put all bilateral relations with South Africa under review.

Likewise, when the Spanish government announced an arms embargo, the US opened an investigation under the guise of examining foreign trade, which is still open, that could levy millions of dollars in fines on Madrid, Gandikota-Nellutla explained.

“What we’re seeing now is a direct attack on the institutions of international law – to send a message yet again – daring to hold Israel and the US accountable,” she added.

Disrupting the global supply chain

The Hague Group is committed to forming an alliance that would counter coordinated action by western states in support of Israel’s military and government.

As stated in their inaugural statement, they pledged to uphold the ICJ’s orders and other international legal obligations, as well as the ICC’s arrest warrants.

The founding states also declared their intention to prevent the supply of arms to Israel in any cases where there is a risk of violating international law, and to block the docking of vessels at ports within their jurisdiction where there is a risk that the vessels are used to transport fuel and arms to Israel. 

“Vessels wear different disguises,” said Gandikota-Nellutla. “They’re not always listed as military vessels. Military equipment is not always listed as military equipment. The destination isn’t always listed as Israeli defence industries,” she explained.

“But they’re using ports and they’re using logistics networks in our own countries to be able to transport arms to be used against the Palestinian people.”

Therefore, The Hague Group aims to coordinate among themselves to interrupt the global supply chain for Israel’s defence industries and to ensure such vessels are identified and do not reach their destination via their ports.

The inaugural nine countries are just the beginning, said Gandikota-Nellutla. More countries are expected to join the bloc in the coming months.

In fact, the negotiations that preceded the establishment of the group included more states than the list of nine.

“The reason for that is precisely this: that the Hague Group isn’t meant to be just a talk shop where states say they support Palestine,” she added.

Joining the group comes with a real commitment to put the inaugural goals into effect via legislation and policies, she added.