Colombia's Double Exit Exposes Fragility of ICJ Intervention Coalitions

Colombia left The Hague Group on 15 October 2026, describing the body as one "created to isolate and attack Israel", and completed a double exit from international litigation built around South Africa v. Israel before the International Court of Justice. Less than a month earlier, on 18 September 2026, Bogotá had informed the ICJ that it was withdrawing its declaration of intervention filed under Article 63 of the Statute. Colombia's April 2024 declaration had been the first intervention on the docket in that case.

The pair of withdrawals, reported by Colombia One, is easily read as a footnote to a change of government in Bogotá. It also reveals something structural about how states organise around litigation at the ICJ, and how well the Court's procedure copes with that organisation. The Court has yet to rule on any declaration in the case. States can enter and leave the list of interveners with the electoral cycle, and for now, at almost no legal cost.

What is The Hague Group?

Nine states launched the group in The Hague on 31 January 2025: Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. Convened by Progressive International and co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa, members committed to "coordinated legal and diplomatic measures" in defence of international law and solidarity with Palestine.

Unlike earlier coalitional interventions, this one had no pre-existing structure behind it. In Ukraine v. Russia, a joint statement of 41 states and the EU in May 2022 preceded 33 declarations of intervention, mostly from EU and NATO members. In The Gambia v. Myanmar, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation shaped the application; Myanmar's claim that The Gambia acted as an "organ or proxy" of the OIC was rejected in the Court's Preliminary Objections Judgment. In South Africa v. Israel, no such bloc existed. The founders shared a political home in the Non-Aligned Movement, but the NAM's 120 members and consensus practice never organised around the litigation. The Hague Group filled that gap as a narrower, purpose-built subset.

The inaugural statement tied the group to both Hague courts. Members pledged to support implementation of the ICJ's 2024 provisional measures orders and the July 2024 Advisory Opinion, to back the ICC's arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, and to block arms transfers and deny port access to vessels carrying weapons to Israel. Accountability ran on two tracks at once: state responsibility in one court, individual criminal responsibility in the other.

The circle then widened. More than 30 states attended an emergency conference in Bogotá on 15–16 July 2025, including Brazil, China, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Qatar, Spain and Türkiye. Twelve signed up to six concrete measures. A ministerial meeting in New York on 26 September 2025 drew 34 states, now including Guyana, Iceland, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The group reached beyond the NAM to Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain.

Why did members leave?

Scholar Fleur Johns, in her 2024 Asser Lecture, offers the idea of an "attenuated community": a grouping that drops claims to unity, identity and permanence but asserts common interest, hooking states in "at least for the time being". What held The Hague Group together was not a bloc but two courts, one case and one situation. That is the attenuation. A grouping held together by one issue has no other glue, and when a government changes its view of that issue, nothing keeps it in.

The record bears this out. Belize, a founder, withdrew within a month. Bolivia and Honduras left on 4 March 2026, both after changes of government. Colombia is the starkest case: it had been a co-founder and driving force. Abelardo de la Espriella won presidential elections on 21 June 2026 and took office on 7 August. His government withdrew the Article 63 declaration, left the Group, and withdrew Colombia's ICC judicial candidate Carolina Olarte Bácares, the only Latin American and Caribbean group candidate for the December elections. The ICC, notably, is half of the Group's accountability agenda.

What does withdrawal do in law?

Strikingly little, at this stage. Neither the Statute nor the Rules of Court address withdrawal of an Article 63 declaration; the Court simply took note of Colombia's letter, as it had of Nicaragua's withdrawal of its Article 62 application on 1 April 2025. Admission would carry procedural rights and Article 63(2) makes the Court's construction "equally binding" on an admitted intervener, but participation is not compulsory once admitted. In Ukraine v. Russia, only 23 of 32 admitted states maintained or renewed declarations for the merits stage.

Entry, by contrast, has been tightened. The Court amended its Rules in 2024: declarations must now be filed no later than the Counter-Memorial under Article 82, and oral hearings for Article 63 interveners sit at the Court's discretion under Article 86(2). Israel filed its Counter-Memorial on 12 March 2026, which explains six declarations filed on 11 and 12 March, including those of the United States and Hungary, described in media reports as tracking Israel's defence. The list is now closed. South Africa's Reply is not due until late 2027.

The result is an asymmetry. Exit is free and unregulated; re-entry is barred. A successor government wanting back in cannot refile. The procedure registers only one direction of political change.

The layers do not move in lockstep. Bolivia and Belize left the Group yet still appear on the ICJ's list of interveners; Honduras, a Group member, never intervened. Joining or leaving a political grouping costs nothing; formally withdrawing a filing is a visible act that Colombia alone has taken.

The Hague Group built a forum reaching over 34 states within eight months, and lost four of its nine founders, three after changes of government at home rather than any development in The Hague. Unless the Court acts, lists of interveners may track electoral calendars as closely as procedural ones.