‘Shocking breach of ethics’: Iran slams ICJ vice president’s open support for Israel

“Shocking breach of judicial ethics: ICJ Vice-President openly sides with Israel, a regime with multiple cases before the Court,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, wrote in a post on his X account on Saturday.

Sebutinde, the Ugandan vice president of the International Court of Justice, said on August 10 that “The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel” and that the signs of the “end times” are being shown in West Asia.

Gharibabadi added that this “blatant bias undermines the ICJ’s credibility and violates the fundamental principle of judicial impartiality.”

Sebutinde also expressed disappointment that the Ugandan government distanced itself from her position, saying, “The whole world was against Israel, including my country.”

Sebutinde’s decision faced immediate backlash from Uganda’s government, as Adonia Ayebare, the country’s permanent UN representative, stated on X, “Justice Sebutinde’s ruling at the ICJ does not represent the Government of Uganda’s position on the situation in Palestine.”

Earlier last year, the 71-year-old was the only judge on the 17-member panel to dissent on all six provisional measures ordered by the court in a ruling regarding the “plausibility” of Israel’s genocide charges in Gaza.

In July 2024, she was once again the sole dissenter when a 15-judge panel declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories illegal.

Zionist regime launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupying Entity in response to the regime’s intensified campaign of death and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far martyred over 61,776 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Zionist regime also faces a genocide case at the ICJ for its war on the besieged coastal territory.