UN’s top court rejects call for Germany to immediately halt arms exports to Israel

(CNN) — The United Nations’ top court has struck down a demand by Nicaragua that Germany immediately halt its military aid to Israel on Tuesday, saying it cannot issue emergency measures against Berlin over its arms exports.

“The court, by 15 votes to 1, finds that the circumstances as they present themselves to the court are not such as to require the exercise of its power under article 41 of the statute to indicate provisional measures,” Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said at The Hague in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

The case against Germany was brought by Nicaragua. A long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause, the Central American country accused Germany of violating its obligations as a signatory of the Genocide Convention through its political, financial and military support for Israel, and by suspending funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Germany suspended the funding in January amid allegations that 12 of the UN agency’s employees were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. It has since reinstated it.

Israel was not a party to the case, but the ruling on Tuesday comes as the ICJ is hearing a separate case brought against Israel by South Africa. In January, the court issued an interim ruling ordering Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, but stopped short of calling for Israel to suspend its military campaign, as South Africa had requested. The ICJ is still considering whether Israel is guilty of violating the Genocide Convention, a legal process that could take years.

This is a developing story, more to follow.

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