ICJ Vice-President: “The Lord Is Counting on Me to Stand on the Side of Israel, Right Side of History”
Kampala (Quds News Network)- The Ugandan vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Julia Sebutinde, has said the “Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel.. the right side of history."
"The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel," she said on 10 August in a speech at the Watoto Church in Uganda, according to the Ugandan news website Monitor.
Sebutinde, who briefly served as the ICJ's acting president earlier this year, revealed that she stood to be vice president of the world court, a role she now holds, because she felt compelled by God to do so.
She said God called her a "coward" and told her to "wake up" when she was lying in bed on the morning of the election worrying about criticism over her stance on Israel.
The judge also shared her thoughts on Gaza, saying the situation signalled the "end times" predicted in the Bible.
"I have a very strong conviction that we are in the end times," she declared. "The signs are being shown in the Middle East. I want to be on the right side of history."
She continued: "I am convinced that time is running out. I would encourage you to follow developments in Israel. I am humbled that God has allowed me to be part of the last days."
Last year, Sebutinde was the only judge on a 17-member ICJ panel that ruled it was "plausible" that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, who voted against all six measures adopted by the court.
And in July 2024, she was again the sole dissenter when a 15-judge panel found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful".
In February 2025, a study accused her of directly lifting sentences almost word for word in her dissenting opinion written on 19 July 2024. It alleged that “at least 32 percent of Sebutinde’s dissent was plagiarised”.
"The whole world was against Israel, including my country,” she said.
Sebutinde described her disappointment that the Ugandan government has distanced itself from her position.
"The position taken by Judge Sebutinde is her own individual and independent opinion, and does not in any way reflect the position of the government of the republic of Uganda," a government spokesperson said in January 2024.
Sebutinde recalled: "Even though the government was against me, I remember one ambassador saying, 'Ignore her because her ruling is not a representation of Uganda'."
