It is the first time in history that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants against an Israeli prime minister, following a request filed in May by the agency’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Pressure on the International Criminal Court
Six months have passed since that requestduring which the chief prosecutor’s office itself has denounced pressures and threats: “’This Court was built for Africa and for thugs like Putin,’ a prominent leader told me. We don’t see it that way. This Court is a legacy of Nuremberg, this Court should be the triumph of law over power and brute force. “We are not going to be deterred by threats,” he said. Prosecutor Khan himself in May, on CNN.
Now, despite the pressure, the Court points out that there are reasonable grounds to consider Netanyahu and Gallant responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as “starvation as a method of war”, “murder, persecution and other inhuman acts” against the population of Gaza. The three judges of the panel that adopted this decision consider that Netanyahu and Gallant “in a manner deprived deliberate “and knowingly providing the civilian population of Gaza with objects essential for their survival.”
For years, Israel has been monitoring senior Court officials and Palestinian human rights workers, “as part of a secret operation to thwart the investigation into alleged war crimes,” according to wakefulness last May the Israeli publication +972 Magazine.
Here the central issue is not when they arrest him, but what Trump, Biden, Germany, Spain, etc. are going to do in response to this order
Moreno Ocampo, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
What does compliance with the order depend on?
The former founding chief prosecutor of the Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo – in office between 2003 and 2012 – recently said, in an interview in elDiario.es, that the United States asked him to close the preliminary investigation on Palestine on several occasions, something that detailed in his recent book.
This Thursday, in conversation with this medium, Moreno Ocampo stressed that these arrest warrants “will limit Netanyahu, he will not be able to travel to 124 States,” in reference to the countries that are part of the Rome Statute.
The Court does not have its own police or other mechanisms for compliance, but the importance of these orders is notable. Arrest warrants have never before been issued against Israeli leaders.
“There is an existing International Court that rules that Israel is committing a crime. Here the central issue is what we do with that information, what happens with the other leaders of the world, what Trump, Biden, Germany, Spain, etc. are going to do,” he says. Moreno Ocampo to this newspaper.
The 124 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute have a duty to comply if the affected person sets foot on their territory.
Joan Garcés, international law lawyer
“Donald Trump has already sanctioned Fatu Bensouda [exfiscal jefe del Tribunal cuando Trump era presidente] As if she were a terrorist for investigating the US, are Spain and other countries going to let that happen? This is the central theme. It is not when they arrest him, but how the world reacts when the International Criminal Court says that what Netanyahu is doing is a crime,” adds the former founding chief prosecutor of this Court.
Reed Brody, lawyer American expert specializing in human rights – with an important role in the trials against the former dictators of Chad and Haiti, Habré and Duvalier – tells elDiario.es that “these orders reinforce the growing international consensus around the criminal nature of the war in “Israel against the people of Gaza.”
“They assume that the world of Netanyahu and Gallant is now limited to countries that have not ratified the International Criminal Court Treaty,” he adds.
Princeton professor and former director of Human Rights Watch, Keneth Roth, puts it this way: “ICC member countries are obligated to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they dare set foot on their territory. Suddenly, the world has become much smaller for these two senior Israeli leaders.”
This order reinforces the growing international consensus on the criminal nature of Israel’s war against the people of Gaza.
Reed Brody, human rights attorney
Double standards and obstacles
In Israel, both the government and majority opposition parties have harshly criticized the ICC’s arrest warrants. “The anti-Semitic decision of the International Court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial and will end the same way,” stated Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday night.
In addition to Israel, five other countries have criticized the court’s announcement: Austria, the Czech Republic, the United States, Milei’s Argentina and the Hungary of Orbán.
Washington defend unite the international law of removal, applied only to its adversaries, and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court in the Israeli case. So he has done it again highlight This Thursday the US Government, through several spokesmen and from Biden himself, who has called “scandalous” the ICC order.
On April 30, the spokesperson for the US Secretary of State stated that Washington does not believe that this International Court “has jurisdiction over this matter,” but that it does work “closely with said Court in a number of key areas: Ukraine, Sudan, Darfur.” The United States welcomed the arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin in March 2023.
In addition to Israel, 5 other countries have criticized the Court’s order: Austria, Argentina, Czech Republic, USA and Hungary
The pressures and this double standard affect Washington’s credibility on the global stage and generate concern about attempts to weaken the image of the Criminal Court. The world witnesses a struggle between the defense of international law and the US attack on the role of the Hague courts.
Already in May, when the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested these arrest warrants, President Joe Biden described them as “outrageous” that request, and the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, raised the possibility of sanctioning the Hague Court.
Michael Waltz, Trump’s future National Security advisor, announced this Thursday “a strong response in January [cuando Trump asuma la presidencia] to the anti-Semitic bias of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations”, in reference to possible sanctions against that court.
In addition to the measures against Netanyahu and Gallant, the ICC has also issued an order against Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Deif, whose death was announced by Tel Aviv but could not be verified by the court. The request for arrest warrants against two other Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniya and Yahia Sinwar, has not been successful, because both were murdered by the Israeli Army.
To exercise the jurisdiction of the Court, neither the authorization, nor the permission, nor the approval of Israel is required.
Almudena Bernabeu, international lawyer
Lawyer Joan Garcés, promoter of the trial against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, explains to this newspaper that the 124 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute They have a duty to comply with the Court’s order if the Israeli Prime Minister or his former Defense Minister sets foot on the territory of any of them.
In turn, Garcés recognizes the difficulties of application “in the face of alleged offenders who control the resources of a State, who challenge the credibility of national and international courts.”
In its twenty-two years of existence – with arrest warrants against 59 people – the International Criminal Court had never indicted a leader allied to the Western community. “In fact, no international court has done so since World War II. It is a milestone in the history of international justice, as unprecedented as it is justified and late,” says Reed Brody.
With this, the lawyer refers to the use of the instruments of international justice used almost exclusively “to address crimes of defeated enemies, as in the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, powerless pariahs, especially in Africa, or opponents of the West like Putin. or Milošević.”
This double standard is affecting the credibility of the United States on the global stage.
In conversation with elDiario.es, the lawyer specialist in international law Almudena Bernabeu, highlights the importance “of the legitimacy of the International Court” and points out that, “to exercise the jurisdiction of the Court, neither the authorization, nor the permission, nor the approval of Israel is necessary.”
The two courts in The Hague are giving tools to UN States to apply international law, at a time when the United Nations Special Committee has just concluded that Israel’s methods in Gaza are compatible with the characteristics of genocide.
The ICC arrest warrants in turn reinforce the framework of the other International Court, the Court of Justice, which in January ordered Israel not to block the entry of necessary humanitarian aid to Gaza, something that Tel Aviv has failed to comply with, as The judges of the Criminal Court now confirm.
International human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, stand out that the Hague Court’s arrest warrants represent “a historic advance for justice and should mark the beginning of the end of the persistent and widespread impunity that is at the heart of the human rights crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory ”.
These orders break the perception that certain people are beyond the reach of the law
Human Rights Watch
“These orders break with the perception that certain people are beyond the reach of the law,” stressed the international organization Human Rights Watch.
Late this Thursday, the chief prosecutor of the International Court, Karim Khan, issued a statement in which he announces that his office is promoting “additional lines of investigation in areas under the jurisdiction of the Court, which include Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem”, territories all affected by the illegal Israeli occupation.
“I have stressed that the law exists for everyone, that its function is to vindicate the rights of all people,” Khan highlights in his statement, in line with his position these past few months. “No one is above the law, no people,” pointed out in May.
It is a historic advance for justice and should mark the beginning of the end of persistent impunity in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Amnesty International
Last July, the highest court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, issued an opinion in which it highlighted the illegal nature of the occupation of these territories and in which ask to the UN member states the suspension of trade and investments that may contribute in any way to that occupation.
Following this opinion, the United Nations General Assembly approved in September – by 124 votes in favor, including that of Spain – a resolution which demands an end to the illegal Israeli occupation within twelve months and calls for an end to trade or investment that may contribute to it.
Since October 2023, more than 44,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza due to Israeli attacks, according to figures provided by health authorities. Israel is carrying out an expulsion operation against the north of the Strip, forcing new displacements and bombing spaces where refugees take shelter. In addition, the blockade of the entry of necessary aid has caused hunger and disease that is causing an unknown number of deaths.
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