South Africa is currently doing two things that are, at best, awkward to reconcile.
In December 2023, it stood before the International Court of Justice in The Hague and accused Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention through its actions in Gaza.
The case was detailed, legally grounded, and explicitly shaped by South Africa’s own experience of apartheid.
Highlights
- South Africa filed a 2023 ICJ case accusing Israel of Gaza genocide, citing apartheid experience as moral grounding.
- South Africa became Israel’s largest seaborne coal supplier in 2024, filling the gap left by Colombia’s export ban.
- South African officials stress economic stability and WTO rules as reasons for not sanctioning Israel despite the ICJ case.
- Civil society groups demand a coal embargo, highlighting a contradiction between South Africa’s legal stance and trade.
- The case exposes a global pattern: legal condemnation often runs parallel to ongoing economic support without sanctions.
At the same time, South Africa recently became Israel’s largest supplier of seaborne coal, helping keep Israeli power stations running after Colombia cut off its exports in protest of the war.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Image credits: Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images/Getty Images
These two facts are not adjacent in government press releases. But they exist in the same reality. And together, they reveal something deeply uncomfortable about how modern geopolitics actually works.
A moral case at the world’s highest court
South Africa filed its case against Israel at the ICJ in 2023, arguing that Israel’s conduct in Gaza violated obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention, which Belgium recently joined.
In January 2024, the court ruled that South Africa’s claims were plausible and ordered Israel to take provisional measures, including facilitating humanitarian aid and preventing acts prohibited under the Convention.
While the court did not rule on whether genocide had occurred, the decision was widely considered a significant legal and political moment.
South African officials framed the case as a moral duty rooted in history. “South Africa has a particular obligation to stand against injustice,” the government said in its filing, explicitly referencing apartheid and the country’s own liberation struggle.
A woman carries a child in her arms in Gaza. Image credits: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu/Getty Images
The case drew praise across many neocolonized lands and pro-justice groups, and fierce criticism from Israel and its allies. But South Africa’s position appeared clear: some crimes are so grave that neutrality is no longer acceptable.
Then came the trade data.
The coal that nobody mentioned
According to Reuters, South Africa sharply increased coal exports to Israel in 2024 and 2025, stepping in after Colombia imposed a ban on coal shipments to Israel in protest over Gaza.
“South Africa has become Israel’s largest supplier of seaborne thermal coal,” Reuters reported, citing shipping and trade data. In some months, shipments rose by more than 80% compared to previous years.
That coal is used primarily for electricity generation. It does not arrive with military labels attached. But electricity powers everything: homes, hospitals, factories, and the infrastructure of the state itself.
South Africa has imposed no sanctions, no export restrictions, and no divestment measures against Israel. Trade continues uninterrupted.
A coal mine in South Africa. Image credits: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images
Asked about this apparent contradiction, government officials have largely avoided direct answers, instead reiterating South Africa’s commitment to international law while stressing the importance of economic stability.
Trade Minister Parks Tau said sanctions against Israel could expose South Africa to legal challenges under World Trade Organization rules, indicating that economic and legal stability concerns are guiding government messaging even as Pretoria insists it remains committed to international law.
Two systems, one government, a gaping hole in morality
This is where the story stops being about hypocrisy and starts being about structure. South Africa’s ICJ case operates in the world of international law and diplomacy. Coal exports operate in the world of global markets and state revenue. In theory, these are separate domains. In practice, they collide constantly.
Coal remains one of South Africa’s most important exports. The industry supports jobs, generates foreign exchange, and carries significant political weight. Cutting off a major buyer would have economic consequences, especially at a time of domestic energy shortages and fiscal pressure.
So while South Africa can pursue legal accountability at The Hague, the economic system quietly vetoes any action that might meaningfully disrupt trade. This is not unusual. It is how global capitalism functions.
A familiar global pattern
Media and academic analysts have long noted that states routinely condemn human rights abuses while maintaining economic ties with the same governments they criticize.
The U.S. sells weapons to countries it publicly rebukes. European governments issue climate pledges while expanding fossil fuel imports. Moral language and material behavior often move on parallel tracks.
South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Parks Tau. Image credits: Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images/Getty Images
What makes South Africa’s case stand out is its history. During apartheid, international sanctions and divestment were not symbolic gestures. They were materially damaging. South African leaders have repeatedly credited economic pressure with accelerating the end of apartheid.
To now argue that trade must remain “separate” from moral condemnation is to quietly abandon the logic that once worked in South Africa’s favor.
Civil society pushback
South African civil society groups have not missed the contradiction. Organizations, including trade unions, climate justice groups, and Palestinian solidarity movements, have called for a coal embargo, arguing that continued exports undermine South Africa’s legal case and moral credibility.
“Taking Israel to the ICJ while continuing to supply it with coal sends a deeply contradictory message,” one activist group told GroundUp. “You cannot argue apartheid in court while sustaining it through trade.”
The government has not responded with policy changes.
Complicity without a smoking gun
Legally speaking, supplying coal does not automatically constitute complicity in war crimes. That determination would require specific findings that do not currently exist. But ethically and politically, the issue is harder to dismiss.
According to international law scholars, complicity does not require intent. It requires knowledge and contribution. If a state believes another is committing grave violations and continues to materially support its capacity to function, the contradiction becomes difficult to defend.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Image credits: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
South Africa’s own case rests on the argument that Israel’s actions are not isolated incidents but part of a systemic pattern. That makes continued economic support harder to square with the government’s stated position.
Why it matters beyond one country: Normalization of disconnect
This is not just a South African story. It is a case study in how moral leadership is constrained by global economic systems. International law depends on states acting in good faith. When legal condemnation is decoupled from economic behavior, the law begins to look performative rather than transformative.
As one political economist put it to Reuters, “Legal action without economic consequence is rarely enough to change state behavior.”
The coal shipments highlight a broader truth: in the modern world, markets often outrank morality.
Displaced Palestinians living in tents in Gaza. Image credits: Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu/Getty Images
Perhaps the most striking thing about this situation is how unsurprising it feels. We have grown accustomed to a world where governments denounce atrocities in speeches while sustaining them through supply chains, where outrage is expressed at summits and neutralized at ports.
South Africa’s actions are not uniquely cynical. They are painfully ordinary.
What alignment needs
Alignment would mean acknowledging that trade is not neutral. That economic pressure is a political tool. And that invoking apartheid language carries obligations beyond rhetoric.
It would also mean accepting economic consequences. Sanctions are costly by design. They work because they hurt. South Africa knows this. It once lived it. South Africa’s ICJ case has already reshaped global discourse. That matters. It should not be dismissed.
The Richards Bay Coal Terminal in South Africa. Image credits: Hoberman Collection/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Research from the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute shows that sanctions are costly by design, with their effectiveness tied to the economic pain they impose.
Legal analysts agree that South Africa’s ICJ case has reshaped global discourse on Gaza and accountability. That intervention matters and should not be dismissed. But historians of international law caution that states are rarely judged by legal arguments alone. They are judged by what they sustain alongside them.