The Hague Group: South Africa Leads Coalition Against U.S./Israel's "Unilateral Bullying" of the ICC

Guests - Varsha Gandikotaexecutive secretary of the Hague Group and co-general coordinator of Progressive International. - Ronald LamolaSouth African foreign minister. At the United Nations this week, President Trump repeated his attacks on the International Criminal Court and urged other nations to pull out of the global tribunal. The United States earlier this year imposed sanctions on the president of the ICC and a senior prosecutor who was part of the team that issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity in Gaza, and the Trump administration is reportedly preparing more sanctions against the institution itself. Meanwhile, a coalition of nations has formed to defend international law in solidarity with the people of Palestine under the banner of the Hague Group, which was established last year by Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. “It’s an absolute low point for the sacred grounds of the United Nations that President Trump has shown up here and attacked the international legal order,” says Varsha Gandikota, executive secretary of the Hague Group. We also air remarks from South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, who spoke earlier this week at the historic Riverside Church in New York City to urge respect for international law. Transcript AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. I’m here in London, in the U.K. At the United Nations in New York this week, President Trump repeated his attacks on the International Criminal Court and urged other nations to pull out of the ICC. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States is equally opposed to the out-of-control institution known as the International Criminal court. We will never allow U.S. service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us. They’re an evil group of people. I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately. AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s speech came just a month after the U.S. imposed sanctions on the president of the ICC and a senior prosecutor who was part of the team that issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity in Gaza. The United States is reportedly preparing new sanctions on the entire International Criminal Court itself, as well as entities that cooperate with it. While President Trump is attacking the ICC, a coalition of nations has formed the Hague Group to defend international law in solidarity with the people of Palestine. The Hague Group was established last year by eight countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. We’re joined now by Varsha Gandikota, executive secretary of the Hague Group, also the co-general coordinator of Progressive International. We thank you so much for being with us, Varsha. There you are outside the United Nations. If you can start off by talking about this direct threat on the ICC, on the International Criminal Court, and respond to what President Trump said in his U.N. address? VARSHA GANDIKOTA: Thanks for having me, Amy. It’s an absolute low point for the sacred grounds of the United Nations that President Trump has shown up here and attacked the international legal order. And this isn’t the first time that he’s done it. We’ve seen these attacks on the ICJ. We’ve seen these attacks on UNRWA. We’ve seen attacks on U.N. special rapporteurs like Francesca Albanese. But this particular announcement about sanctioning the court as a whole, its bank accounts, its software, its staff, its officials, wherever they may be in the world, is an absolute low point, but opens a clear opportunity for all of the other countries in the world to rise up, to use the tools at their disposal within national legislations, like blocking statutes that exist in China, that exist in the European Union, that exist for countries across the Global South, to create alternate payments, to create alternate softwares, to halt the effect of unilateral bullying from the United Nations and the United States. AMY GOODMAN: How does this differ, Varsha, from individual — individual people associated with the International Criminal Court being sanctioned, which has made it very difficult for them? We should say the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. But now what this would mean for the entire court system at The Hague? VARSHA GANDIKOTA: In practice, Amy, we’re not talking about a few individuals, but anyone and any institution across the world that cooperates with the court essentially coming into what is a giant dragnet of U.S. sanctions. It could be a researcher in a civil society organization. It could be a trade unionist calling for accountability. It could be a journalist that writes something that’s picked up by an ICC judge and used in a judgment. It could be a journalist reporting on cases inside the ICC. It’s essentially a giant dragnet that’s meant to send out a chilling effect on anyone that is hoping to hold war criminals to account. But furthermore, we know that this impunity will not be limited to the ICC, will not be limited to just the ICJ or The Hague. We know that this is about a message that is sent across the world that friends who — of powerful countries will never be held to account for crimes against humanity, for war crimes that they commit. AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, who spoke earlier this week at the historic Riverside Church in New York City. It’s where Dr. King gave his address a year to the day before he was assassinated, his speech against the war in Vietnam. Lamola spoke about South Africa’s commitment to the Palestinian cause and the need for international solidarity to end Israel’s genocide. South Africa is co-chair of the Hague Group. This is an excerpt of what the South African foreign minister said. RONALD LAMOLA: After years of pushing and marching, ordinary people across the world compelled the international community to declare apartheid a crime against humanity in South Africa. More than 80 years since its adoption, the U.N. Charter’s principles of fundamental human rights, the dignity and the worth of every person and the equal rights of nations, large and small, are more important than ever before. When we approached the ICJ, the U.N.'s principal judicial organ, to challenge Israel's violation of the Genocide Convention, we did so as part of our commitment to upholding and defending international law and multilateral institutions. We acted because we knew what the global solidarity can do. In so doing, we summoned the same global solidarity that broke apartheid in South Africa to help dismantle the apartheid under which Palestinians continue to live. We chose to act because democratic South Africa was made possible by multitudes of ordinary people who heard and answered our call for freedom in our lifetime. We acted to stop Israel’s impunity and to secure justice for a people suffering a live-streamed genocide that you see in real times in your fingertips. This has not been a solitary journey, because of all of you. Many countries, some of whose representatives are here today, have joined this effort to put a stop to the destruction of the Palestinian life. The Hague Group embodies that solidarity, camaraderie and shared conviction that concrete action is needed to uphold an international order based on the rule of law. … In the face of grave injustice, silence is complicity. As one of the 20th century’s greatest beneficiaries of international solidarity, we have no choice but to act, despite trial and tribulations and challenges that we face as a result of our choices to act in defense of humanity. We carry this challenge as a badge of honor. Today, we declare that indeed we are many. Our numbers are growing. We will not move, and we shall not be moved. We continue to sing this anthem of resistance and solidarity, because we know that nothing is more unsettling to injustice than collective voices that refuse to be silenced. Let me conclude by borrowing another rallying cry from the people of Sophiatown in South Africa, who literally over 70 years ago took racial segregation head-on and declared, in the face of apartheid bulldozers, “We will not move. Ons dak nie, ons phola hier. Amandla!” AUDIENCE: Awethu! RONALD LAMOLA: All power! AUDIENCE: To the people! RONALD LAMOLA: All power! AUDIENCE: To the people! RONALD LAMOLA: All power! AUDIENCE: To the people! RONALD LAMOLA: Amandla! AUDIENCE: Awethu! RONALD LAMOLA: Awethu! AUDIENCE: Amandla! RONALD LAMOLA: Amandla! AUDIENCE: Awethu! RONALD LAMOLA: Awethu! AUDIENCE: Amandla! RONALD LAMOLA: Thank you very much. AMY GOODMAN: South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, speaking Monday at the historic Riverside Church in New York City. He was speaking in front — next to a sign, “We Shall Not Be Moved,” which was the theme of the night. Among those who spoke was independent senator, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. To hear an excerpt of that speech, you can go to democracynow.org. Varsha Gandikota, you’re head of the Hague Group. You’re meeting inside the United Nations today. In this last 30 seconds, the point of this meeting, and who will be there? VARSHA GANDIKOTA: This meeting is an extraordinary meeting in defense of international law. Amy, you mentioned that we began as a group of nine nations in January 2025. Today, it will be nearly 40 countries meeting to ask what are three significant shifts that we need to make, from complicity to compliance, from impunity to accountability and towards a new multilateralism. Exactly as Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola mentioned in his speech at Riverside Church, we want to win the victory, similar to the victory against the South African apartheid regime, through a U.N. Special Committee Against Apartheid, through a Security Council U.N. arms embargo, and ensuring that all countries come together to coordinate their actions at the national level, so that international law isn’t just something that’s proclaimed or declared, but actually practiced and enforced. AMY GOODMAN: Varsha Gandikota, I want to thank you for being with us, executive secretary of the Hague Group. We’ll link to your new piece in The Guardian, which is headlined “Israel and the US have battered the international legal order. The impunity must stop.” Coming up, Akbar Shahid Ahmed. He’s author of the new book, Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s War in Gaza. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: “Sólo Le Pido a Dios,” “I Only Ask God,” popularized by Mercedes Sosa and performed by the Chilean American musician and producer Nicolás Jaar in our Democracy Now! studios this week. Media Options