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Lebanon’s Nawaf Salam Elected President of the International Court of Justice

A photo posted by Judge Nawaf Salam on his X account after his election as head of the ICJ.
A photo posted by Judge Nawaf Salam on his X account after his election as head of the ICJ.
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Lebanon’s Nawaf Salam Elected President of the International Court of Justice

A photo posted by Judge Nawaf Salam on his X account after his election as head of the ICJ.
A photo posted by Judge Nawaf Salam on his X account after his election as head of the ICJ.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague elected Lebanese judge Nawaf Salam as its president for a three-year term succeeding US Judge Joan Donoghue.

Salam is the first Lebanese and second Arab to occupy this position, after the former Algerian Foreign Minister and President of the Constitutional Court, Mohamed Bedjaoui.

Salam, who currently holds the highest judicial position in the world, joined the ICJ in 2018.

The International Court of Justice comprises 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.

The Court may entertain two types of cases: legal disputes between States submitted to it by them and requests for advisory opinions on legal questions referred to by UN organs and specialized agencies.

The Court, dubbed the World Court, is the principal judicial body of the United Nations.

Former Lebanese Foreign Minister Fouad Ammoun also served as a judge in the Court between 1965 and 1976 and was elected vice president.

Salam, whose name was recently put forward as a candidate for prime ministry, previously served as Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN between 2007 and 2017. He represented his country in the Security Council in 2010 and 2011 and chaired its work in May 2010 and September 2011.

He also taught contemporary history at the Sorbonne University and international relations and law at the American University of Beirut, where he headed the Department of Political Science and Public Administration from 2005 to 2007.

Nawaf Salam holds a state doctorate in political science from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne University, and a master’s degree in laws from Harvard University.

He has many books on politics, history, and law, the most recent of which is “Lebanon Between Past and Future,” published in Beirut in 2021.

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Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
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Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)

Israel is considering options to respond to repeated attacks fired from Yemen in the past few days, the latest of which was a Houthi missile strike that injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv.
But military experts say Israel should first consider an intelligence plan for confronting the new front after it faced significant difficulties in both defending against and responding to the Houthi attacks.
On Saturday morning, Houthis launched a missile that triggered sirens throughout central Israel at 3:44 am. It was the second attack since Thursday.
Israel's military said the projectile landed in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area, adding that attempts to intercept a missile from Yemen failed.
“The incident is still being thoroughly investigated,” the army said, adding that following initial investigations by the Israeli Air Force and Home Front Command, “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, both regarding interception and early warning.”
Israeli military experts say the recent Houthi attacks have revealed serious security gaps in Israel's air defense systems.
“The pressing question now is why none of the other of Israel’s air defense layers managed to intercept the warhead,” wrote Yedioth Ahronoth's Ron Ben-Yishai. “The likely explanation is the late detection and the flat trajectory, which prevented the operation of all available defense apparatus.”
He said these incidents might expose a critical vulnerability in the army’s air defense system protecting Israel’s civilian and military home front.
According to Ben-Yishai, two main reasons might explain Saturday’s interception failure.
The first is that the missile was launched in a “flattened” ballistic trajectory, possibly from an unexpected direction.
As a result, Israeli defenses may not have identified it in time, leading to its late discovery and insufficient time for interceptors to operate.
He said the second, and more likely scenario is that Iran has developed a maneuverable warhead.
Such a warhead separates from the missile during the final third of its trajectory and maneuvers mid-flight—executing pre-programmed course changes—to hit its designated target, he wrote.
And while Israel has launched initial investigations into the failure of Israeli defense systems to intercept the missiles, it is now examining the nature, date and location of its response.
When Houthis launched their first missile attack on Israel last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned them, saying, “The Houthis will learn the hard way.”
But Israeli political analyst Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the Maariv newspaper that Israel should look at reality with open eyes and say out loud that it cannot deal with the Houthi threat from Yemen, and has failed to face them.
Last Thursday, 14 Israeli Air Force fighter jets, alongside refuelers and spy planes, flew some 2,000 kilometers and dropped over 60 munitions on Houthi “military targets” along Yemen’s western coast and near the capital Sanaa.
The targets included fuel and oil depots, two power stations, and eight tugboats used at the Houthi-controlled ports.
But the Maariv newspaper warned about the increasing involvement of Iran in supporting the Houthi forces.
“Iran has invested more in the Houthis in recent weeks following the collapse of the Shiite axis, making the Houthi movement a leader of this axis,” the newspaper noted.
Underscoring the failures of Israel’s air defense systems, Maariv said the “Arrow” missile defense system, Israel's main line of defense against ballistic missiles, had failed four times in a row to intercept missiles, including three launched from Yemen and one from Lebanon.
Yedioth Ahronoth's Ben-Yishai also warned that the threat posed by maneuvering warheads on Iran's heavy, long-range missiles would become existential for Israel should Iran succeed in developing nuclear warheads for these missiles.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 said that in recent months, the Middle East has changed beyond recognition.
The channel said that for the first time in more than half a century, a direct and threat-free air corridor has been opened to Iran through the Middle East. Israel will benefit from this corridor to launch almost daily attacks on the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, it said.
Channel 12 also reported that according to the Israeli military, the new threat-free corridor will help Israel launch a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
“From Israel's perspective, the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the Iranian ring of fire are changing the balance of power in the Middle East,” the report added.