On December 14, 2023, upon instructions from the President of the Republic, Tunisia officially filed a request to have it included on the list of countries that will have to present their oral pleadings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
According to a press release from the Department of Foreign Affairs published on Wednesday, the Tunisian initiative is part of Tunisia’s firm support for the just Palestinian cause.
A national authority in international law will draft the oral argument, the department revealed, adding that the oral argument hearings will begin at the International Court of Justice headquarters on February 19, 2024.
The ministry specified that this international mobilization is in line with the appeal launched by the United Nations General Assembly to the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from the continued violation by the Zionist entity of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, their occupation, colonization and long-term annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The ICJ’s advisory opinion must also rule on the measures decreed by the Zionist entity to modify the demographic composition, character, and status of the holy city of al-Quds.
The impact of the Zionist entity’s policies and practices on the legal status of the occupation will also be scrutinized as part of the Hague Court’s advisory opinion.
The Department of Foreign Affairs would like to emphasize that the Tunisian initiative emanates from our country’s deep conviction in the “symbolic significance” of this opinion which comes following a request made by the most representative body of the UN in the main judicial organ of the United Nations.
According to the same press release, the advisory opinion of the ICJ is of major importance, since it will rule on the question of the criminalization of massacres committed against unarmed civilians in Gaza, regardless of their legal qualification as genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.
Moreover, this opinion will also have to rule on “substantial” and “existential” questions for the Palestinian people, including in particular, their right to self-determination and the legal status of colonization.
In its pleading, adds the press release, Tunisia will work, with supporting evidence and documents, to reveal the truth about the occupying entity’s internationally illegal and illegitimate character and its flagrant violation of the pacts and fundamental principles of international law.
Still, according to the same source, Tunisia greatly aspires to see the advisory opinion of the ICJ unmask the “colonialist posture” of the Zionist entity before the international community, as was the case in July 2004 when the Court ruled on the question of the separation wall.
The Department of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed that Tunisia’s position is “firm and inflexible” on the just cause of the Palestinian people and that our country is entirely open and favorable to initiatives, trials, and announcements that trace the history of the Palestinian cause on a date before October 7, 2023, or which do not equate the victim with the oppressor, or which do not condemn the resistance.
Tunisia also stressed that it will never again adhere to any lawsuit brought against the occupying entity before the International Court of Justice, based on the firm conviction that such a measure constitutes in itself an “implicit recognition” of the Zionist entity.
