ISTANBUL (Türkiye): In a historic session at Istanbul University, the Gaza Tribunal, a global civil society initiative inspired by the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam, declared Israel responsible for genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
After a year of hearings in London, Sarajevo, and Istanbul, the Tribunal’s “Statement of Findings and Moral Judgment” condemned not only Israel’s actions but also the complicity of Western governments and global institutions that, it said, have enabled the destruction of Gaza.
The Tribunal’s verdict, though not legally binding, was unequivocal: “When law is silenced by power, conscience must become the final tribunal.” The words were read by Christine Chinkin, a professor at the London School of Economics and chair of the Jury of Conscience.
Formed in late 2024, the Gaza Tribunal emerged from frustration with international paralysis. Its founders — jurists, academics, human rights defenders, and journalists — argued that when official mechanisms fail, citizens must assume the duty of conscience. They gathered testimonies, applied international legal norms, and built a record meant to serve as both documentation and mobilization.
The Tribunal’s structure mirrored that of a state inquiry. A Steering Committee set direction, while three chambers — International Law; International Relations and World Order; and History, Ethics, and Philosophy — examined evidence from multiple disciplines. A Jury of Conscience, composed of eminent figures including Chinkin and former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, synthesized the findings into the final judgment.
Falk told participants that this people’s tribunal “preserves truth in the absence of justice.” He said its archive was intended to endure beyond the politics of the moment, providing future courts and movements with an evidentiary foundation.
The Jury of Conscience said it assessed extensive oral and written testimony, legal analysis, and documentation based on the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Its inquiry revolved around two questions: whether acts prohibited under genocide law had occurred, and whether they were carried out with the intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in part.
Listing the mass killing, infliction of conditions calculated to destroy life, prevention of births, and forcible transfer of children, the jury also rejected the idea that this was merely a humanitarian catastrophe, calling it instead a “coherent and consistent pattern of exterminatory violence.”
The judgment recognized eight categories of crimes, including:
Starvation and famine as policy through the destruction of food systems.
Domicide, or the deliberate leveling of homes and utilities to erase communities.
Ecocide, the poisoning of land and water.
Reprocide, or the targeting of reproductive health and maternal care.
Scholasticide, the killing of educators and destruction of schools.
Attacks on journalists to suppress documentation.
Torture and sexual violence.
Politicide, the elimination of leadership and institutions.
The jury said, all these form part of a larger genocidal architecture, “designed to dismantle the conditions of life of an entire people.”
Impunity, Complicity, and Global System
Beyond Israel’s direct actions, the Tribunal’s statement accused the United States and Western allies of moral and material complicity. It pointed to military aid, diplomatic cover, and technology transfers as elements that sustain the assault. It also extended criticism to global media, universities, and corporations whose investments, partnerships, and algorithms “normalize the machinery of destruction.”
This web of actors, the jury said, constitutes the “political economy of genocide.” By linking profit to violence, it argued, the system ensures that moral outrage remains cost-free. The Tribunal called for independent audits, sanctions, and divestment campaigns to expose and dismantle this network.
It also blamed the United Nations Security Council, paralysed by vetoes, for failing to prevent atrocities. Still, it praised other UN mechanisms, particularly the Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry and the work of Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, for preserving evidence “with courage and rigor.”
In his closing remarks, Falk described the so-called peace process as “a colonial bargain dressed as diplomacy.” He argued that ceasefire frameworks drafted in Washington and Tel Aviv reward perpetrators by imposing reconstruction under foreign control while silencing the victims.
“The Gaza struggle is not about territory alone,” he said. “It is a legitimacy war — a contest between a colonized people asserting law and a state using power to erase it.”
Falk warned that if the current global order cannot restrain impunity in Gaza, “it will not restrain it anywhere.”
Call for Global Movement
The Tribunal’s recommendations went far beyond moral censure. It urged the suspension of Israel from international organizations, including the United Nations, until compliance with the law is verified. It called for the activation of the “Uniting for Peace” resolution — a 1950 UN mechanism allowing the General Assembly to act when the Security Council is blocked. The move, if pursued, could pave the way for an international protective force and coordinated aid corridors.
The statement also called for a coordinated global movement linking legal, economic, academic, and cultural efforts to isolate what it described as a “racist and supremacist structure.” It clarified that the struggle is “against Zionism as a political project, not against Jews or Judaism,” and envisioned a single, rights-based political order built on equality, restitution, and the right of return.
Organizers said the full record will be transmitted to the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice, UN bodies, and national parliaments. Plans include parliamentary briefings, campus presentations, and public hearings to turn the findings into policy pressure.
The Gaza Tribunal sees itself not as an endpoint but as a civic network connecting legal experts, journalists, archivists, and survivors. Its organizers said the next phase includes translating the record, engaging trade unions, and coordinating legal filings in countries with universal jurisdiction statutes.
They also plan to work with professional associations on ethical investment policies, faith groups on humanitarian action, and technology workers on data accountability. “None of this depends on states agreeing,” said one jurist. “It depends on people insisting.”
The Tribunal’s approach recalls the anti-apartheid hearings of the 1980s, when civic pressure eventually forced governments to impose sanctions. The hope, participants said, is to make “silence costlier than action.”
Chinkin reminded the audience that the Tribunal cannot issue arrest warrants or compel discovery. Its authority lies in moral reasoning and public record. “Neutrality,” she said, “is not the point. Conscience is.”
The Jury’s statement ended with a warning: “If perpetrators and their enablers escape justice, a new frontier of impunity will be normalized.” It pledged ongoing documentation, support for boycotts and sanctions, and amplification of Palestinian voices.
As the Istanbul session closed, applause rose from the hall. Students, journalists, and survivors stood together, some in tears. The Tribunal’s final line echoed through the marble corridors: “Silence is not neutral. Silence is complicity.”
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