Note: This event has been postponed. We will announce a new date once confirmed. Thank you for your understanding.
On Jan. 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in the case South Africa brought against Israel, accusing the latter of violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza. Many commentators have already identified this case as one of the most critical ever presented before the ICJ. Though the court did not call for an immediate ceasefire to the conflict, it did demand Israel take action to prevent genocide in Gaza, including orders to halt the killing of civilians, allow humanitarian aid, and hold public figures who incite genocide accountable for their actions.
What is the meaning of these provisional measures? How might they affect the Israeli offensive in Gaza? What next steps could the international community take to enforce the ICJ’s measures? To shed light on these and other questions, the Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to invite you to join a panel discussion to explore the legal, political, and practical outcomes of the ICJ ruling.
Speakers
Professor Yaël Ronen
Professor, Academic Center for Science and Law, Minerva Center for Human Rights in the Hebrew University
Ardi Imseis
Assistant Professor of Law, Queen's University
Eyal Lurie-Pardes, moderator
Visiting Fellow, Middle East Institute
Detailed Speaker Biographies
Professor Yaël Ronen is a faculty member at the Academic Center for Science and Law, and a research fellow at the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She obtained her PhD at the University of Cambridge, England. Professor Ronen is the academic editor of the Israel Law Review, a journal focusing on human rights, international and public law, published by Cambridge University Press. Her areas of interest include territorial status, human rights, and the intersection between these areas. She has written extensively on statehood and on the law of occupation, especially in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prior to her academic career, Professor Ronen served in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was a member of the Israeli negotiating team in the Oslo Process.
Dr. Ardi Imseis is an assistant professor and the Academic Director of the International Law Programs at Queen's University Faculty of Law. He is a former Member of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry into the civil war in Yemen (2019-2021). Between 2002 and 2014, he served in senior legal and policy capacities in occupied Palestine with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Professor Imseis has provided expert testimony in his personal capacity before various high-level bodies, including the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and to members of the UK House of Lords and the French Senate. He is author of the United Nations and the Question of Palestine (Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2023). His other scholarship has appeared in a wide array of international journals, including the American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Professor Imseis is former Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law (Brill; 2008-2019) and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow, Columbia Law School. He holds a Ph.D. (Cambridge), an LL.M. (Columbia), LL.B. (Dalhousie), and B.A. (Hons.) (Toronto).
Eyal Lurie-Pardes is a Visiting Fellow in the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute after receiving the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School LLM Post-Graduate Fellowship. Prior to joining MEI, Eyal worked in legal advocacy and policy research for civil rights in Israel and Palestine. Among other things, Eyal worked with the legal department of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights, and as a parliamentary advisor for Member of Knesset Michal Rozin. He received his BA and LL.B. in law and history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an LLM degree from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images