Media Statement
The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) would like to propose to the Malaysian Parliament when it meets on Monday 12 January 2009 that it adopts a motion urging the Malaysian government to commence discussions with other like-minded governments on the possibility of instituting joint legal proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague for violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The vast majority of the governments and peoples of the world would agree that Israel has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people. The Gaza carnage is but the latest episode in this ongoing annihilation of an entire community that began in 1948.
There are various steps that have to be taken in commencing proceedings against Israel in the ICJ. A number of local and international lawyers would be more than willing to advise and assist the Malaysian government in this. The most outstanding of them is the internationally renowned academic-cum-lawyer, Professor Francis Boyle of the United States, who has been an unwavering advocate of a suit against Israel for genocide against the Palestinians for a few years now. It was Boyle who filed the first lawsuit ever on genocide with the ICJ on behalf of Bosnia against the rump Yugoslavia in 1993. He won two court orders that demanded that Yugoslavia cease and desist from committing genocide against the Bosnians. In a note to me recently, Boyle, who is a member of JUST’s International Advisory Panel (IAP) had opined that Malaysia should consider suing Israel “to save the Palestinians”.
However, the first step would be for the Malaysian government and the opposition, speaking as one voice through the Malaysian parliament to endorse a motion to institute legal proceedings against Israel. It would be more effective if other nations from different religious and cultural backgrounds also joined hands with Malaysia.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
Malaysia.
10 January 2009.