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Author	Dr Atul Alexander
Organisation/Institution	The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
Country	INDIA
Panel	Human Rights
Title	Revisiting ‘Factual Plausibility’ Under the Genocide Convention at the Provisional Measures Phase in the International Court of Justice: Probing the Evidentiary Standards
Abstract	The International Court Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between States through its contentious jurisdiction and is also competent to render advisory opinions. Of late, several States have invoked the compromissory clause in human rights treaties to approach the ICJ under the premise of erga omnes parties. Among the human rights treaties, the Genocide Convention 1948 is the most prominent. This trend is witnessed in Gambia v. Myanmar, Ukraine v. Russian Federation and the most recent case of South Africa v. Israel. In these cases, involving the crime of Genocide, the ICJ has rendered provisional measures in favour of the applicant. One of the requirements for granting provisional measures is that rights asserted by the party requesting such measures are “at least plausible (plausibility test).” The plausibility requirement needs to be anchored on a specific right under a treaty and is also backed by evidentiary proof (factual plausibility). The author in this paper argues that the evidentiary standards in assessing plausibility in Genocide Cases at the provisional measures phase are chequered, thus creating legal uncertainty. The lack of uniformity has resulted in the lowering of the plausibility standard and is well documented in the individual opinions of Judges. According, it is concluded that the ICJ has to formulate a uniform set of evidentiary standards for evaluating plausibility standards, thereby mitigating any subjectivity and salvaging the plausibility requirement.
Biography	I am Assistant Professor (Law) at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS), Kolkata, and faculty advisor of the International Law Student Association (ILSA)WBNUJS Chapter. I am an alumnus of Loyola College, the School of Excellence in Law, and completed my PhD from The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University (TNDALU). I am also a recipient of the Junior Research Fellow (JRF) and was ranked first in my LLB (2014) and LLM (2016). I completed a Diploma in ‘Law of the Seas’ magna cum laude from the Korean Maritime Institute and Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, Italy, with scholarships in 2022 and 2023, respectively. I was short-listed as a visiting research scholar at the Stockholm Center for International Law, U.S Naval War College, United States. I have contributed to leading Journals like the Asian Journal of International Law (Cambridge University Press), Arab Law Quarterly (BRILL), International Comparative Law Quarterly (Cambridge), Chinese Journal of International Law (Oxford University Press) etc. Some of my works were cited by renowned scholars like the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Judges James Crawford and Dire Tladi. I was invited as a panellist at the AsianSIL Biennial Conference held on 22-23 August 2019, Regional Conference of Asian Society of International Law (ASIL) in China, Beijing, and recently selected as a panellist at the European Society of International (ESIL) interest group workshop in the context of the 2021 ESIL Annual Conference held at Stockholm on 8 September 2021.