The Verity Courier
The ICC
By Ron Estes
1 June 2024
The International
Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental
organization and international tribunal seated in The
Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international
court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international
crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of
aggression. President Biden is making a serious mistake attacking the ICC warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In
doing so, the U.S. found itself at odds with some key allies after
President Biden denounced the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war
crimes court for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders. France
and Belgium, were among a number of countries to defend the
“independence” of the International Criminal Court after prosecutor
Karim Khan accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of war crimes. It’s about time.
After
mass violence, “ethnic cleansing,” and genocide took place in
Yugoslavia and Rwanda during the 1990s, two temporary courts were
created by the United Nations Security Council to bring perpetrators to
trial. The precedent of Nuremberg trials after WWII laid the groundwork
for these temporary tribunals.
The
temporary nature of the international courts, along with continued
violence around the world, raised several questions: Was it possible to
create a more permanent international criminal court? Would such a court
act as a deterrent for the worst atrocities? What crimes would come
under the jurisdiction of an international criminal court? To address
these questions, representatives from more than 160 countries gathered
in Rome in June 1998 at a meeting called the Rome conference. Because
the representatives came from diverse cultures with differing views on
justice, reaching agreement about the structure of an international
criminal court required careful negotiation and compromise. Despite
these challenges, the document drafted at this conference, the Rome
Statute, was eventually approved, establishing the International
Criminal Court. As of 2015, 123 countries had officially recognized the
authority of the court. The International Criminal Court (ICC) began
investigating its first cases in 2002.
The
Hamas 7 0ctober attack on Israel was a bizarre, thoughtless,
dangerous, mindless, suicidal act, and Israel had every right to defend
itself. There was, however, a series of episodes setting the stage for
such an attack. Israel has occupied Gaza for 57 years, and since 2007
imposed a blockade on the territory that deprived the population of
adequate food. The blockade violates article 33 of the 4th Geneva
Convention: collective punishment of a civilian population. Violations
of the Convention are prosecutable as war crimes by the ICC.
Israel
has reelected Netanyahu as Prime Minister for the 6th time. And
Netanyahu has formed a coalition to govern which Israeli media
classifies as the most right-wing in the history of Israel.
The
Netanyahu Government has avowed to strengthen and increase the size of
Israeli settlements built on Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, and
that intention has created a crisis for the Biden Administration in the
UN Security Council. A proposed UNSC resolution is being processed
which will demand an immediate halt to Israeli settlement activity, and
Secretary of State Blinken is struggling to avoid a showdown at the
UNSC, with the U.S. effort to guide this UNSC session into a five day
condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The
Netanyahu expansion intentions once again provide the U.S. an
opportunity to prove to the nations in the region that Israel and the
U.S. do not share the same values. Israel has constructed 144
settlements in the occupied West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem
which Israel has annexed. Approximately 700,000 Israelis live in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem. The U.S. has opposed the introduction of
Israeli settlements on occupied territory, making the point that they
are obstacles to introducing a two-state solution to peace between
Israel and the Palestinians.
Not
to lose the vote and campaign financial support of the Israel lobby in
the U.S.,both Democratic and Republican parties have historically
ignored the fact that the Israeli settlements are a violation of
international law.
Those
settlements violate Article 49, paragraph six of the Fourth Geneva
Convention which explicitly stipulates that “the occupying power shall
not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
territory it occupies.” Violations of the Geneva Convention are
prosecutable as war crimes before the International Criminal Court in
the Hague. The UN International Court of Justice ruled that Israeli
provision of infrastructure, land, funding, schools, synagogues, water,
electricity, roads, etc., constitutes transfer of civilian population to
occupied territory, and thus the settlements violate international law
and are illegal,” as did: Amnesty International, the Human Rights
Watch, and the European Union. The Conference of the Convention of the
High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Convention also declared the
settlements illegal in 2001.
The
Biden administration has been handed a golden opportunity to restore
its leading political and ethical role in the region, damaged by the
Trump recognition of Jerusalem as the capital Israel, by not only
supporting the current ICC warrant for Netanyahu, but also taking a
leading role in supporting ICC warrants and prosecution of Netanyahu
and other responsible Israeli officials for war crimes committed by the
Gaza blockade and West Bank settlements.
Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.
