BBC News interviews Rachel George on ICJ case against Israel
The lecturing fellow discussed the International Court of Justice order for Israel to halt its Rafah offensive.
Rachel George, lecturing fellow at the Duke Center for International Development, discussed on BBC News the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order for Israel to halt its Rafah offensive.
During the May 24 interview with journalist Catriona Perry, George explained that while the ICJ is the highest court in the United Nations system, it's relatively powerless due to having very limited enforcement mechanisms.
“There's no police force, no military backing for this court…for this reason the court has a lot of symbolic meaning,” George told Perry. “It can have some sorts of impacts that we're seeing, especially the buildup of international court action and advocacy, but I think where we're really going to see impact when we talk about not just legal binding, the binding nature of decisions, but the enforcement, will be in the Security Council.”
George, director of education content at the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as a Research Fellow at ODI in London. Her work has been published in outlets including Foreign Policy, World Politics Review, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Human Rights Review, Think Global Health, and as chapters in The Arab Gulf States and the West: Perception and Misperception, Opportunities and Perils, and The Routledge History of Human Rights. She holds a doctorate in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.