By Agnès Callamard, Secretary General at Amnesty International
South Africa has played a leading role in international efforts to prevent, stop and punish Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Now, as the nation prepares to host the first G20 Leaders’ Summit on African soil, it has an important opportunity to step up that pressure and fill the alarming void that has emerged in the international order.
While superpowers are undermining multilateralism through inaction and double standards, or actively attacking the international justice system, we look to states like South Africa to show principled leadership and champion a global vision that upholds and protects human rights universally.
The international community’s complicity or inaction in the face of Israel’s livestreamed genocide has been shameful and indefensible. World leaders’ collective failure to put a stop to Israel’s crimes under international law will stain their reputations for generations to come. Sadly, this was not for the first time. They have far too often allowed international law to be trampled on, betraying the legacy of the global consensus who said “never again” to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War.
It has been particularly disconcerting to see the architects of the rules-based order take a sledgehammer at the values, principles or institutions underpinning it, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the United States’ military support to Israel and its shameless sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the Palestinian NGOs al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
The G20 summit in Johannesburg comes after the African Union became a permanent member in 2023, affording the group and its members enhanced influence on the international stage. Amid the global leadership vacuum and the Trump administration’s “America First” approach to foreign policy, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government must seize this opportunity to reinvigorate multilateralism and forge a new order truly committed to upholding international law and equality.
South Africa has set a strong example and shown much-needed leadership in protecting Palestinian rights, including through the case it brought against Israel under the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice in December 2023, and in co-founding the Hague Group, a coalition of nations determined to hold Israel accountable, including through the ICC. This is an encouraging start, but the gravity of the situation around the world, with international law set aside in favour of the principle that “might is right”, means South Africa must help build a bigger tent by forging larger and stronger international alliances to press powerful states and their regional proxies into abiding by international law.
To be a credible advocate at global level, South Africa must show greater consistency in its own human rights record.
South Africa must use all its leverage to compel Israeli authorities to lift their 18-year-long illegal blockade and allow unimpeded access to humanitarian aid to civilians in the entire Gaza Strip. All parties must respect the cessation of hostilities and ensure international law and respect for human rights are adhered to. South Africa, like other states, must press Israel to end its unlawful occupation of the Palestinian Territory and dismantle its cruel system of apartheid against Palestinians.
Elsewhere, South Africa should leverage its influence over Russia to press for an end to its crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine and step up its international advocacy work around the overlooked conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It must throw its full diplomatic weight behind regional and international accountability efforts and ensure the African Union urgently presses the Sudanese and DRC governments and forces such as the RSF and M23 to end their human rights abuses.
The world is also facing growing economic inequality both within and between countries. Much of this is a continuing legacy of colonialism and racial injustice, which South Africa itself still wrestles with, and is compounded by new and perpetuated inequalities driven by the response to human-induced climate change. African countries, including South Africa, have been instrumental in progressing a UN Tax Treaty to replace the current OECD-dominated one to ensure a fairer global tax system and address the billions lost every year to tax abuse. Yet there is still much to do, including a similar process and treaty on debt to tackle the unsustainable amounts owed by low-income countries, which are crippling their ability to deliver better and more climate-resilient economic and social rights enjoyment for their people. At 80 years old, the Bretton Woods financial system is clearly unfit for purpose and remains dominated by high-income countries who set the rules with often catastrophic consequences for lower-income nations. As a powerful voice for the global south, South Africa must ensure the G20 does not continue to neglect these vital issues but grasps the nettle and pushes for radical reform.
That said, to be a credible advocate at global level, South Africa must show greater consistency in its own human rights record. The Ramaphosa administration should address domestic issues, including mounting concern over corruption and impunity, and access to essential services such as water, sanitation and adequate housing. It must reassert its commitment to the ICC, which it had threatened to leave. And it should ensure it does not exhibit the double standards that are destroying universal values and the credibility of international law, by denouncing violations committed by its allies and using its influence to ensure these abuses are stopped and remedied.
From Gaza to Sudan, the DRC, Ukraine and Myanmar, to the planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the world is crying out for principled global leadership to help deliver justice, stability and accountability. South Africa should heed those calls, lead or support principled, collective and robust international action, and step up for humanity.
