Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau, has revealed that South Africa’s membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) prevents it from terminating all coal exports to Israel.
Tau, in reply to the EFF’s Carl Niehaus, said that South Africa exported 1.8-million tons of coal to Israel in 2025, equating to 2.6% of South Africa’s global coal exports of 71.5-million tons.
He explained that there are continuous discussions on these matters to ensure alignment in government, “However, currently, there is no position to review SA exports to Israel”.
He had also mentioned it would violate the WTO principle of non-discrimination and would open the country to a legal challenge.
“Sanctions applied by one member against another in the absence of multilateral sanctions by the [United Nations] would violate the WTO principle of non-discrimination and would open the country to legal challenge,” said Tau.
While Niehaus has shared his outrage at Tau’s response, activists have spoken out too and said that the minister’s argument does not hold any weight or substance.
Mothers4Gaza founder, Ayesha Bagus, said that they are deeply concerned about Tau’s response, particularly in the context of South Africa’s ongoing case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“This is not a denial that WTO law applies in ordinary circumstances. It does. The question is how South Africa interprets its own legal discretion when faced with mounting evidence of grave breaches of international law and the risk of serious harm to civilians.
“WTO rules do contain exceptions, including those relating to national security and public morals. While their application is legally complex, they have been used by states in a range of politically sensitive and conflict-related contexts,” Bagus said.
“The legal position is therefore not absolute. It requires judgment, interpretation, and a careful assessment of risk, not a simple statement of constraint.”
Bagus added that at the same time, South Africa has obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention and customary international law, “which require states to take reasonable steps to prevent complicity where there is a serious risk of genocide”.
The concern we raise is that South Africa appears to be adopting the narrowest possible interpretation of its constraints, treating WTO obligations as decisive while not fully engaging the lawful policy space that also exists within international law,” Bagus said.
An attorney at Lawyers for Human Rights, and a lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Mametlwe Sebei, said: “I can tell you this, he’s talking nonsense.
“Firstly, there are always exceptions to these rules, and when you look at these WTO rules, they make an exception for situations, but also situations of emergency in international relations,” Sebei said, who also represents the SA-Energy Embargo for Palestine.
“You cannot tell me that this situation in West Asia at the moment is not an emergency. When Gaza is under genocide, the violence in the West Bank has reached an unprecedented level, and you have a situation in Lebanon…. You cannot tell me that any of that would not constitute the kind of emergency in international relations that allows for exceptions created by all.”
Sebei said that the WTO anticipated that countries at war would not be able to continue trade with each other as normal.
Sebei, who has been arguing against the exporting of coal to Israel, said that their argument has always been that “this coal is fuelling the military industrial complex that is carrying out the genocide”.
Sebei said that South Africa has to step up their protests efforts as the “ANC is not doing this out of legal consideration”.
“They are b*llsh*tting on that one, quite frankly, and I’m sorry to use that word, because I get agitated that these are the (same) people who campaign all over the world against an Apartheid-regime,” Sebei said.
“As South Africans for an energy embargo, we just have to continue organising, but part of that organising is to linking up with the workers, and with communities on their own concrete struggle, because our failure to impose, what is the only necessary and logical action on the government of this country, is basically for the same reason that we are unable to hold them accountable on anything,” Sebei said.
“Our struggle to forge a movement for solidarity with the people of Palestine, requires that we also build a movement for solidarity, with the working class in this country, in its own struggle, because that very weakness to fight on the challenges faced by the working class, is the very same weakness that makes it difficult for us to render a meaningful, solidarity with people of Palestine, beyond declaration statements, and symbolic actions.”
A spokesperson for the minister, Kaamil Alli, said that the country’s position on the matter is clear. “Our case in the ICJ demonstrates where the South African government stands on this issue.
“The South African government has taken practical steps to allow a multilateral institution to make a determination on what it views as a prima facie case of genocide,” Alli said.
“Understanding the manner in which trade happens and the rules at the WTO by which South Africa is bound, it would be incorrect to suggest that the government is unclear about its position on Palestine.”
