Article 3 — Accountability and Complicity: The Architecture of Responsibility Under International Law

I | Why Accountability Matters Now

Accountability is the fulcrum between power and impunity.
Under the Genocide Convention (1948), states do not merely punish genocide—they must prevent it.¹
When mass destruction looms, failure to act is not neutrality but complicity.

In Gaza, the obligations of state, individual, and collective responsibility converge—demanding more than condemnation.

II | Dual Tracks: ICJ and ICC

The international system splits responsibility into two complementary paths:

• ICJ (State Responsibility): Judges whether Israel breached its convention obligations. South Africa v. Israel (2024–2025) is the ongoing test case.

• ICC (Individual Accountability): Prosecutes leaders and actors for concrete crimes—most recently, arrest warrants issued in May 2025 for Netanyahu and Gallant under Articles 6–8 of the Rome Statute.²

While ICJ decisions bind states, ICC judgments bind individuals. Together, they enforce the same underlying law.

III | Duty to Prevent: Knowledge Triggers Liability

In Bosnia v. Serbia (2007), the ICJ held that once a state knows or should know of a serious risk, its duty to prevent kicks in.³
Under Article 16 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility, assisting another state’s wrongful act is unlawful if the supplier knows the circumstances of that act.⁴

Gaza’s documented siege, mass casualties, and repeated ICJ orders eradicate any viable claim of ignorance.

IV | Structuring Complicity

1. Material Complicity

Providing the tools, logistics, or intelligence that enable genocide.

• Israel receives ~$3.8 billion per year under the U.S.–Israel MOU (2019–2028), per CRS Report R44245.⁵

• U.S.-supplied F-35s, JDAM kits, and targeting data have been used in attacks verified by UNOSAT and Amnesty International.⁶

2. Political Complicity

When a state knowingly shields another from consequences.

• U.S. vetoes in UNSC (Dec 2023, Feb 2024, Apr 2024) blocked meaningful humanitarian resolutions.⁷

• That exemption of Israel from collective accountability constitutes breach of duty to prevent.

3. Institutional Complicity by Omission

UN agencies constrained by mandates or politics may implicitly enable atrocity by inaction.

• UNRWA has warned of Gaza’s collapse, yet states remain unable or unwilling to enforce accountability.⁸

V | Precedents That Forge Liability

These cases collapse the space of “safe complicity.” Gaza now lies within that doctrinal closure.

VI | New Frontiers: Enforcement Beyond Courts

• Universal Jurisdiction Courts: Investigations underway in Spain, Belgium, South Africa into suppliers linked to Gaza.⁹

• Sanction Mechanisms: The EU’s 2025 Humanitarian Accountability Directive empowers sanctions on those enabling genocide.¹⁰

• Civil Litigation: Legal actions under ATS, UK Human Rights Act, and European tort statutes are being filed against corporations and officials.¹¹

Together these create a web of overlapping jurisdictional pressure.

VII | The UN’s Dilemma

The UN paradox is stark: the same institution that once birthed Israel (UNGA 181(II)) now documents its humanitarian infractions.¹²
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in 2025 that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference.”¹³
Yet the Security Council, as gatekeeper, remains immobilized by veto politics, shifting hope to smaller states and civil society to uphold the rule of law.

VIII | Accountability as Prevention, Not Retribution

Each tribunal decision since Nuremberg has affirmed: justice deferred invites repetition.
Impunity after Rwanda fueled Darfur; Darfur’s silence emboldened Gaza.

The current juncture is an inflection. The convergence of ICJ orders, ICC warrants, and domestic initiatives is our best chance to close the impunity gap.

IX | Conclusion

The architecture of responsibility is now explicit:

• Genocide is not only the mass act but the shared failure to stop it.

• States that finance, transport, or shield perpetrators after credible warning are not neutral — they are complicit.

Law’s authority endures not through ex nihilo judgments but through relentless enforcement— upward to states, sideways to peers, and downward to individuals.
In Gaza, the world faces a test not of law’s existence, but of its resolve.

Endnotes

1. UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 Dec 1948 (A/RES/260 A (III)).

2. ICC Prosecutor, Applications for Warrants of Arrest — Netanyahu & Gallant, 15 May 2025.

3. Bosnia v. Serbia, ICJ Judgment, 26 Feb 2007, paras 430–438.

4. International Law Commission, Articles on State Responsibility, 2001, Article 16.

5. CRS, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, Report R44245, July 2024.

6. UNOSAT & Amnesty International, Damage Assessment of Gaza Strip (2024).

7. United Nations Security Council voting records, S/2023/1048; S/2024/116; S/2024/347.

8. UNRWA, Commissioner-General’s statement to UNGA, 3 May 2024.

9. National courts of Spain, Belgium, and South Africa: universal jurisdiction investigations into Gaza crisis (2025).

10. European Council, Humanitarian Accountability Directive, COM(2025) 142 Final.

11. U.S. District Court, Doe v. Defense Contractors, Complaint under ATS, May 2025.

12. UNGA Resolution 181(II), 29 Nov 1947.

13. UN HRC, Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the OPT, A/HRC/60/CRP.3, 16 Sept 2025.