From Israel Palestine News, January 16, 2023
Videos of South Africa’s presentations before the International Court of Justice. A powerful, well researched presentation, well worth your attention.
The presentations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on behalf of South Africa on Jan, 10, 2024 documenting Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
The bio of each speaker can be viewed at the YouTube post. The bios are copied from Youtube description.
“Adila Hassim’s legal career has spanned decades, primarily focusing on socio-economic rights matters. She specializes in constitutional, administrative, health, and competition law. Hassim has served as an acting judge and has contributed to various legal and health journals. Additionally, she is a co-founder of Corruption Watch, an anti-corruption organization.”
“Tembeka Nicholas Ngcukaitobi SC (born 25 December 1976) is a South African lawyer and legal scholar. An advocate of the Johannesburg Bar since August 2010, he gained silk status in February 2020. He is currently a member of the Judicial Service Commission and a part-time member of the Competition Commission’s Competition Tribunal.
“Born in the former Transkei, Ngcukaitobi clerked for Justice Arthur Chaskalson on the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He spent several years as an attorney for Bowman Gilfillan before joining the bar and the constitutional litigation unit of the Legal Resources Centre. He has since argued in front of the Constitutional Court on behalf of clients including the Economic Freedom Fighters, the Zondo Commission, and President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“In addition to his expertise in constitutional and public law, he has experience in competition law, labour law, and land law. He has written two books about land dispossession and land reform, The Land Is Ours (2018) and Land Matters (2021), and he has acted as a judge in the Labour Court, the Land Claims Court, and the High Court of South Africa… “
“John Dugard has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Law for Palestine since 2020. He is a South African lawyer, specialized in international law and human rights law. During the apartheid era in South Africa, he directed the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, a unit committed to litigation and advocacy in defence of human rights. After the fall of apartheid, he participated in the drafting of the Bill of Rights for the new South African Constitution. In 2013 He was awarded the Order of the Baobab, South Africa’s highest award for community service and has received several honorary doctorates from South Africa universities for his work in the fields of human rights and international law. He is a senior counsel of the High Court of South Africa.
“John Dugard is professor emeritus of the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Leiden. He has held visiting professorships in universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. From 1995 to 1997 He was Director of the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely in the fields of international law and human rights and has authored eight books on these subjects. He is an honorary member of the American Society of International Law and a member of the Institut de Droit International. “Professor
“Dugard has held a number of positions in the field of international Law. For fifteen years he was a member of the UN International Law Commission and served for many years as judge ad hoc on the International Court of Justice. From 2001 to 2008 he was UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and has chaired two commissions of inquiry into Israel’s violations of international law: the first, for the United Nations in 2001 into violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed in the course of the Second Intifada ; and the second, for the League of Arab States into crimes committed in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, 2008-2009. He has written widely of Palestinian issues and from 2010 to 2014 he was juror of the Russell Tribunal that examined Israel’s violations of international law in occupied Palestine.“
“Advocate Max du Plessis has been an advocate for 23 years, practising and teaching mostly in the South African city of Durban. He is associated with the Doughty Street Chambers in London and is an associate fellow at Chatham House, London.
“Du Plessis is without any doubt one of the top minds in international law. He combines practice and academic work. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela University.
“As an international lawyer, he advises governments, international organisations and NGOs. He has appeared in or advised on cases before, among others, the International Criminal Court, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, the Southern African Development Community Tribunal, and the East African Court of Justice. “
“Du Plessis has submitted friend of the court briefs before the US Supreme Court, the US Court of Appeals and the Israeli Supreme Court. He is the lead or co-author of textbooks prescribed by most law schools in South Africa. The most recent is International Law: A South African Perspective (2018 – 5th edition) .
“In 2015, he acted for the Southern African Litigation Centre, to counter the South African government’s argument that then Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who was visiting South Africa, had immunity from prosecution for war crimes under customary international law as a head of state.”
“Blinne is a human rights and international law expert with a broad criminal, civil and public law practice. She advises and acts for individuals, States, Non-Governmental Organisations, and other national and international bodies, arguing novel, complex and often high-profile points of law before domestic courts, including the Supreme Court, and before international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice.
“Her domestic practice includes cases involving the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of protest, discrimination and equality, international law, environmental law, national security, prisons, police.
“Blinne was nominated Public International Law Junior of the Year in 2022. She was shortlisted for Barrister of the Year in 2022, Crime Junior of the Year in both 2020 and 2021, and for Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in 2021. She was Times Lawyer of the Week in January 2022 and Irish Legal News Barrister of the Month in February 2022 for her defence of one of protesters who toppled the statue of the slaver Edward Colston in Bristol. She was appointed a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School in 2016, and a Pegasus Fellow to the Centre for Constitutional Right in New York in 2010.
“She is called to the Bars of Ireland, North and South, in addition to the Bar of England and Wales. She is also on the International Criminal Court’s List of Counsel.”
“Vaughan Lowe is a practising Barrister at Essex Court Chambers, mainly in the field of international law, with cases in the International Court of Justice, the ECJ, the ECHR, the ITLOS, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, ad hoc Arbitral Tribunals and courts in England and Hong Kong, among others. He has also sat as an arbitrator in many investment arbitrations under the auspices of ICSID, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other bodies, and on the tribunals addressing the boundaries between Trinidad and Barbados, and between Croatia and Slovenia. He has sat as an ad hoc judge on the European Court of Human Rights and served as the UK-nominated judge on the European Nuclear Energy Tribunal. He is Emeritus Chichele Professor of Public International Law and an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College in the University of Oxford.”