The plaintiffs stated that, together, over 100 of their family members had been killed in Gaza.[5] Included among the dead are six members of Ahmed Abu Artema's family who were killed, including his 12-year-old son, five members of Dr. Al-Najjar's extended family who were killed, and eight of Mr. Abu Rokbeh's family who were killed.[5] Several individuals and 77 human rights organizations joined the plaintiffs as amici curiae, including Josh Paul from the US State Department; genocide and Holocaust scholars William Schabas, Dr. John Cox, Dr. Victoria Sanford, Dr. Barry Trachtenberg; and Jewish Voice for Peace.[12][13][14]
Case timeline
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the case for the plaintiffs on November 13, 2023. The preliminary injunction hearing took place on January 26, 2024.[5]
Outcome
On 31 January 2024, the case was dismissed. The judge ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction over US foreign policy due to the U.S. Constitution's political question doctrine, but that he would have preferred to have issued the injunction and urged President Biden to rethink U.S. policy,[6][7]
writing:[8]: 8
There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the Court. This is one of those cases. The Court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter. Yet, as the ICJ has found, it is plausible that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide. This Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.
As reason to not apply the U.S. statutes in regard to the Genocide Convention on the actions of the U.S. government, the court relied on the political question doctrine and cited the reasoning in Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc: "Whether to grant military or other aid to a foreign nation is a political decision inherently entangled with the conduct of foreign relations."[8]: 7
