UN high court will not rule on Qatar blockade

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's highest court, on Thursday declared itself incompetent to judge whether the United Arab Emirates' air, sea and trade blockade against Qatar, which was lifted a month ago in June 2017, violates a treaty on discrimination. 

Such a gesture is a far cry from the tension experienced two and a half years ago in The Hague, with Qatar's complaint over alleged discrimination against thousands of its citizens, who were forced to leave the UAE. 

In 2018, the Qatari government officially filed a complaint against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the International Court of Justice for the discrimination suffered by the Qatari population in the emirate as a result of the diplomatic and commercial blockade maintained by Abu Dhabi against it since 2017. Qatar asked the court to put in place measures to prevent the UAE from discriminating against Qatari citizens, whose freedoms of expression and movement were curtailed and who were victims of hatred. 

In its complaint, Qatar cited violations of the 1966 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which Qatar and the UAE are signatories and which prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, on the other hand, have not signed this convention.  

The Qatari government asked the ICJ to take the necessary steps to fulfil its obligations under the Convention against Discrimination by revoking the Emirati measures and fully restoring the rights of Qatari citizens. 

The ICJ, ordered the Emirates in July 2018 to protect the rights of Qatari citizens living on its territory. In a veritable game of ping-pong, the UAE responded to the court, contesting the Qatari accusations.

The UN high court decided, by 11 votes to six, to accept one of the preliminary objections raised by the UAE to Qatar's complaint, filed in 2018, and said it has no jurisdiction to adjudicate on the merits of the case. 

ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf declared that the court "has no jurisdiction to deal with the request submitted by Qatar".

However, the ICJ's ruling today established that the expulsion of the Qataris cannot be judged on the basis of ICERD because the "current nationality" of those concerned is not one of the terms for a finding of discrimination. 

The ruling brings to a close the legal dispute over the diplomatic clash in the Persian Gulf on 5 June 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar and imposed an air, sea and trade blockade on it for allegedly supporting cross-border terrorism and the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, described by several nations as terrorist. 

Since then, relations of all kinds have been cut off and attempts have been made to isolate the country in an attempt to bring about a change in its foreign and financial policy, which had brought it closer to new partners such as Turkey and Iran, international players singled out for destabilising parts of the Middle East and North Africa with their belligerent stance. Al-Jazeera's signal was blocked; flights between the two countries' capitals were cancelled, and Qatari ships were banned from operating in Emirati ports.

Today's decision by the judges is in line with the improvement in relations between the countries in the region and the subsequent lifting of the blockade on Qatar, announced a month ago when Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani made an official visit to Saudi Arabia and embraced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.