A video has been shared on social media falsely claiming to show a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, ordering Germany to withdraw its support for Israel. However, proceedings in the case are ongoing, and the person in the video is not even a judge.
In early March, Nicaragua filed a case against Germany at the ICJ, alleging that Berlin is complicit in genocide in Gaza through its political and financial support of Israel. Germany has vehemently denied the allegations.
The video that has been circulating on Instagram and other social media networks supposedly shows an ICJ judge calling on Germany to immediately suspend its aid to Israel. The German-language caption says that Germany has been “condemned,” implying that the court has already passed judgment in the case and ruled against Germany. This is misleading.
The man in the video is Philippe Gautier, the registrar of the ICJ. He has a range of duties, including judicial ones, such as managing court proceedings and documents, but he is not the judge presiding over the case. The text he is reading in the video is a series of provisional measures that Nicaragua has asked the court to order, rather than a judgment. These include orders for Germany to suspend its provision of military equipment to Israel and to do what it can to ensure German weapons already in Israel are not used to contribute to the alleged genocide.
It is worth pointing out that Gautier is speaking English in the video. Journalists from Euronews’ German service have verified that the translated subtitles are generally accurate, even if the video as a whole has been taken out of context.
The video itself is real and was filmed as part of Nicaragua’s case against Germany; it has simply been miscaptioned. The full version can be found on the ICJ’s website. The clip in question starts at roughly the 9:53 mark and is clearly framed in the full video as being a list of requests from Nicaragua. The ICJ’s president, Nawaf Salam, asks Gautier to read out the requests to the court, who then explicitly notes he is quoting from Nicaraguan court filings.
It is also wrong to suggest this is a court ruling, because the ICJ has yet to rule on the case. On March 8, the court confirmed that the public hearings on the matter had finished and that deliberations had begun, adding that it will deliver its verdict in another public hearing on a yet-to-be-decided date.
