The Kremlin may have been trying to undermine the ICJ’s authority by making it a venue for specious legal arguments, say authorities.
Nicaragua’s case against Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in which the Central American country accuses Berlin of facilitating a “genocide” in Gaza, likely came at the behest of Russia, Western intelligence officials and diplomats told POLITICO.
A detailed western intelligence assessment presented to POLITICO determined that Russia, which has close relations with Nicaragua’s authoritarian leaders, likely pushed their allies in Managua to use the so-called Genocide Convention of 1948 to pursue Germany at the ICJ.
The Nicaraguans “have no reason to inject themselves into a conflict over the Middle East,” one of the western intelligence officers said.
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For Putin, who seems to take a particular delight in trolling the Germans, humiliation may well have been part of the calculus.
Nicaragua shuttered its embassy in Berlin earlier this month as a result of the case. Neither the Nicaraguan mission to the United Nations in New York, nor its embassy in Vienna, which now covers Germany, responded to a request for comment.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A detailed western intelligence assessment presented to POLITICO determined that Russia, which has close relations with Nicaragua’s authoritarian leaders, likely pushed their allies in Managua to use the so-called Genocide Convention of 1948 to pursue Germany at the ICJ.
In recent years, Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega has increasingly modelled his authoritarian regime on Russia’s, drawing inspiration in particular from Putin’s law on “foreign agents.”
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some 13,000 Palestinian militants had been killed and estimated the civilian death rate to be 1-1.5 for every combatant since Israel launched its war on Hamas in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 massacres.
If Russia is behind the move, there was likely a more pressing motivation for putting Germany in the ICJ dock, according to the intelligence assessment: To try to undermine the court’s credibility in Western countries by making it a venue for specious legal arguments.
Russia ignored the order — the ICJ has no ability to enforce its decisions — but the ruling continues to irk Moscow because it robs Putin’s regime of any pretense of international legitimacy for its war of aggression.
In the meantime, Moscow will use Nicaragua’s case against Germany and the separate genocide proceeding brought by South Africa against Israel to undermine the court’s legitimacy and argue through its propaganda channels that Russia is the victim of a double standard, the western officials said.
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