ICJ president accused of plagiarism in dissenting opinion on Israeli occupation

The current President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Julia Sebutinde, has been accused of plagiarizing parts of her dissenting opinion in the court's advisory opinion on Israel's occupation of Palestine. In July of last year, a panel of 15 judges determined that Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories was "illegal" and that its "near total segregation" of people in the occupied West Bank violated international law concerning "apartheid" and "the apartheid regime."

While most of the judges agreed with the opinion, Sebutinde refused to accept the court's findings, stating that the case should be resolved through negotiations between the parties. Zachary Foster, a researcher on Palestinian issues, pointed out the alleged plagiarism in a post on X on Sunday. In one section of her dissenting opinion, Sebutinde wrote, "Territorially, the name 'Palestine' vaguely applied to a region that was part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years prior to World War I."

Sebutinde continued, "In 135 AD, after suppressing the second Jewish revolt in the province of Judea, the Romans renamed the province ‘Syria Palaestina’ (or ‘Palestine Syria’). The Romans did this as a punishment to show contempt for ‘Y’hudim’ (Jews) and to erase their connection to their province (known in Hebrew as Y’hudah)." She also wrote, "The name ‘Palestine’ is associated with people known as Philistines who lived along the Mediterranean coast." These three sentences appear to be taken almost verbatim from an article published by Douglas J. Feith at the Hudson Institute in December 2021.

Feith is a senior fellow at the conservative think tank, the Hudson Institute, and served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush from July 2001 to August 2005, where he was responsible for developing U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During this time, Feith was in charge of a key Pentagon office that, prior to the March 2003 invasion, issued "inappropriate intelligence assessments claiming a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, which were disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies." Feith's article for the Hudson Institute was not cited in the bibliography of Sebutinde's dissenting opinion.

Foster noted in his post that Sebutinde also took several sentences from the Jewish Virtual Library, only modifying a few words. Sebutinde wrote: "When the distinguished Arab-American historian Professor Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946 against the compulsory partition of Palestine, he commented: ‘There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history; absolutely not.’” The Jewish Virtual Library's "Myths and Facts" page contains a very similar sentence: "When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Professor Philip Hitti of Princeton University, testified before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946 against partition, he said: ‘There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.’” Foster highlighted four sentences borrowed from the Jewish Virtual Library in Sebutinde’s dissenting opinion. The website is not mentioned in the Ugandan judge’s citations.

The Jewish Virtual Library is part of a U.S.-Israel cooperative enterprise that states it "provides facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict" and combats the "delegitimization of Israel." Sebutinde became President of the ICJ earlier this month after former President Nawaf Salam was appointed as the next Prime Minister of Lebanon. In January of last year, the ICJ issued an interim ruling calling on Israel not to hinder the delivery of aid to Gaza and to improve the humanitarian situation. It also ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in the besieged enclave, and to punish incitement to genocide, among other orders.

Described by Israeli media as "pro-Israel," Sebutinde was the only judge on the 17-member panel to vote against all six measures adopted by the court. Israeli judge Aharon Barak also voted against several of the measures. The dissenting opinion prompted Uganda to distance itself from Sebutinde. At the time, a government spokesperson stated in a statement: "The position taken by Judge Sebutinde is her personal and independent opinion and in no way reflects the position of the government of the Republic of Uganda." They added that Kampala supports the Non-Aligned Movement’s position on the war, which was adopted at a summit held in the Ugandan capital. The Non-Aligned Movement condemned Israel’s war on Gaza and its killing of civilians.