Bangladesh's right of intervention in the Genocide Convention cases

On 14 January 2024 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed ‘the opportunity to file a declaration of intervention in the proceedings in due course’ in South Africa v Israel. This piece, written days later, sets out what that would actually involve.

The distinction that matters is between two articles of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Article 63 gives a party to a convention the right to intervene where the construction of that convention is in question, and the construction the Court adopts then binds the intervening state. Article 62 permits intervention where a state has an interest of a legal nature that may be affected, and lies in the Court’s discretion. An intervention on the meaning of the Genocide Convention proceeds under article 63. For Bangladesh, the piece argues, its declaration under article IX would very likely bar intervention at the preliminary objections stage, where those proceedings concern the construction of article IX, while it seemingly retains the right to intervene during the merits phase.

A state intervening on construction is arguing about the meaning of obligations that will bind it too.

It closes: ‘Of course, Bangladesh could at any time withdraw its declaration of 5 October 1998, thus removing the above discussed barrier to intervention in all stage of the proceedings in the Genocide Convention cases.’