Statement on Recent Remarks by ICJ Vice-President Judge Sebutinde

On 10 August 2025, the vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda, declared before a Ugandan congregation: “The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel.” She went further, describing the Genocide in Gaza as a sign of the biblical “end times” and presenting her judicial role as divinely ordained.

These words are extraordinary in and of themselves. But they become quite grave when set against her judicial record: Sebutinde was the lone permanent judge to dissent in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) January 2024 order finding it "plausible” that Israel’s acts in Gaza could fall within the scope of the Genocide Convention. Her opposition was joined only by Israel’s ad hoc judge, Aharon Barak. She once again broke from the majority, dissenting from the Court’s advisory opinion that declared Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful—this time alongside a small minority of judges. In both landmark cases, Sebutinde’s votes placed her squarely against the overwhelming weight of international law and the Court’s considered judgment. While the Lemkin Institute firmly believes in the value of dissent in legal matters, we also believe that at international courts, dissent must be grounded in the law rather than in religious beliefs.

Sebutinde’s statements and her record together pose a serious challenge to the ICJ’s credibility. They expose an important set of problems: the double standard around religion in international politics, the intellectual deceit of her dissents, and the danger of experts—academics and judges—becoming among the most effective agents of authoritarian and exclusionary ideologies.

The ICJ rests on a delicate foundation: it has no army, police, or any enforcement power. Its authority solely relies on the idea that it is an impartial forum where international law guides decision-making. ICJ judges swear an oath to exercise their functions “impartially and conscientiously.”

When a sitting vice-president of the Court publicly claims that her role is to carry out God’s plan for Israel, she compromises that oath. Her dissents, far from being based on sound legal reasoning, now emerge as fixed by her theological commitments. Law becomes prophecy; judgment becomes evangelism.

The ICJ’s rulings on Palestine are among the most substantial in decades. They are cases that will shape the legal discourse on genocide, occupation, apartheid, and self-determination for generations. If even one senior judge is guided by religious eschatology, it risks delegitimizing not just her own opinions, but also the authority of the court itself.

A deeper hypocrisy is at work here—this case exposes how international institutions reproduce this asymmetry. Sebutinde’s open invocation of Christian prophecy will likely be brushed off as eccentricity, or stomached as a “personal view”. But had it been a Muslim judge who declared that they were standing with Palestine because the Qur’an commands to stand with justice against oppression, they would certainly face calls for resignations, denunciations of fanaticism, and accusations of incompatibility with international law by selective champions of justice, their blood running cold with the fear of “jihad”.

This hypocrisy is structural. In Western rhetoric, Christian and Jewish religious framings are normalized—think of “Judeo-Christian civilization" Zionist appeals to a biblical “promised land”, or Christian Zionist beliefs that Israel is divinely chosen. These are taken as socially legitimate belief systems that are legitimate in courts as well as public discourse. Muslim religious references, on the other hand, are pathologized as extremism.
If Sebutinde’s theological engagements expose weakness in her impartiality, the plagiarism allegations that came to light in February this year raise questions about her intellectual integrity. It was reported that 32 percent of her dissenting opinion was swiped from pro-Israeli commentators.

For a senior ICJ judge, this is disastrous. These opinions are meant to be thorough in legal reasoning. However, Sebutinde’s dissent appears to be an assemblage of partisan talking points repackaged in judicial language rather than an independent analysis.

This whole matter shows how ideology can be laundered through law. When arguments from propagandist commentators are cut and pasted and then dressed up as “legal reasoning”, the court becomes a pathway for the enforcement of reigning ideologies rather than a check against them.

There is a long and troubling history of authoritarian systems relying on learned elites—judges, lawyers, professors, philosophers—to legitimize oppression. Carl Schmitt, the Kronjurist des Dritten Reiches (Crown Jurist of the Third Reich), furnished the legal justification for the Nazi dictatorship. Legal theorists in apartheid South Africa carefully rationalized segregation. American jurists defended slavery as consistent with constitutional order. Under US President George W. Bush, lawyers and psychologists officially justified and defended torture. Today, in the United States, many lawyers and firms play a similar role, enabling ICE’s machinery of mass deportation—drafting arguments, defending abusive detention practices, and providing a legal facade for policies that are morally indefensible and often legally dubious.

This is the paradox: it is not the ignorant but the educated who often make authoritarianism most durable. When prejudice is openly authorized, it can be resisted. When prejudice is cloaked in legal robes and presented as reasoned judgment, it acquires a veneer of inevitability.

Sebutinde is a present-day case study for this phenomenon. By embedding Christian Zionist theology and pro-Israel ideology into her judicial role, she transforms political bias into what appears to be law. She is not dangerous because her ideology is bizarre, but because she represents the classic role of the intellectual as the enabler of exclusionary power.

Uganda’s government has already distanced itself, making clear that Sebutinde speaks only for herself. Yet her stance risks collateral damage. In international law, Global South judges are already subjected to greater suspicion of bias than their Western counterparts. Her case may reinforce those prejudices, undermining the credibility of Global South contributions at precisely the moment they are most needed to challenge Western dominance in international institutions.

This is tragic. For decades, African, Asian, and Latin American judges have brought critical perspectives to the ICJ—often pushing the Court to confront colonial legacies and systemic inequality. Sebutinde’s personal crusade risks painting those contributions with a brush of unreliability.

Julia Sebutinde may believe she is “on the right side of history,” a divinely appointed defender of Israel in the last days. Yet history will likely record her otherwise—not as a decisive figure, but as a cautionary example of how international justice falters when personal ideology and prophetic belief displace legal principle. While her individual influence may be limited, the worldview she represents is deeply troubling, as it risks undermining the credibility of international courts and legitimizing impunity.

Her case highlights three urgent facts. First, that the ICJ’s legitimacy is fragile and depends on judges resisting the temptation to import ideology and theology into their rulings. Second, that international law remains shaped by religious and cultural double standards that tolerate Christian Zionist framings while demonizing Muslim ones. And third, that educated elites—judges among them—can be the most effective agents of authoritarianism when they dress prejudice in the garments of law.

The authority of international justice rests on secular, impartial reasoning. Once judges turn to scripture instead of statute, international law ceases to be law. It becomes a crusade. And crusades have never delivered justice.