So the ICC Wants to Investigate Israel

 ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced she was launching an investigation against Israel for alleged crimes committed in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is supposed to be a court working according to international law. So how does it have the authority to launch a war crimes investigation against the Jewish state.

The government decided to adopt the recommendations of the inter-ministerial team led by the NSC which recommended not cooperating with the international court but also not leaving the prosecutor’s letter unanswered and responding and making it clear that the court is acting without authority.

In the response letter sent to the ICC, it will also be pointed out that Israel “absolutely rejects the claim that it has carried out war crimes.”

“Israel reiterates its unequivocal position according to which the court in The Hague lacks the authority according to its own laws to open an investigation against it,” the letter will note.

This position was also made clear to the court by other countries and noted experts in international law.

“The unacceptable interference of the court lacks any legal basis and contravenes the goals for which it was established. The State of Israel is committed to the rule of law and will continue to investigate any accusation against it regardless of the source and expects that the court will refrain from violating its sovereign authority,” the statement said. "there is no other word to describe this other than hypocrisy.”

“A body that was founded to defend human rights has become a hostile body that defends those who trample human rights,” he added.

The Attorney General restated his position that the ICC lacks any jurisdiction on this matter since no sovereign Palestinian state exists nor does any territory belonging to such an entity.

Israel has not joined the ICC.

Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor at NGO Monitor, who authored the organizations; amicus brief to the ICC, and has been involved in the ICC’s Israel-related dealings as far back as the initial efforts in 2008, stated that Bensouda’s decision was “expected,” and her claim that she and her office have consistently engaged in a “principled, non-partisan approach” is “utterly laughable.”

“From the very beginning of her tenure she encouraged the Palestinians to join the Court, has repeatedly relied upon claims from and engaged with Palestinian terror-linked NGOs, and invented out of whole cloth an attenuated legal theory to go after Israelis. And there are many other indications of bias,” she charged.

“It is unclear if the new Prosecutor will be able to undo the considerable damage she has done to the institution’s credibility,” she noted.

ICC Chamber Decision an Irreparable Stain on the Court

 Read full article by Alan Baker here

It is both tragic and ironic that the State of Israel, one of the founding fathers of the vision of creating an independent International Criminal Court after the unimaginable atrocities committed against the Jewish People during the Holocaust, has now become the target of that very International Criminal Court. It is all the more ironic that Israel now finds itself being accused by the Court based on Palestinian political manipulation.

The irony is all the more evident given the legal acrobatics by the politically oriented and politically influenced prosecutor of the Court and the majority of judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber in their obstinate and flawed insistence on attributing elements of statehood and sovereignty to a Palestinian entity that is distinctly, and by all international standards, not a state.

Nor does such entity have any sovereign territory, and thus, even according to the Statute of the ICC, cannot be the subject of the Court’s jurisdiction. This ironic situation is not surprising, given the prevailing international atmosphere of incitement and hostility toward Israel throughout the UN system.

However, what is shocking is the fact that the one international juridical institution that was hoped and intended by its founders, and stated in its founding document, to be “an independent, permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”, has allowed itself to be politically manipulated and abused.

The Court has irreparably prejudiced any juridical integrity, credibility and bona fides that it might have had. This decision by the Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber to accept the contention of the prosecutor, based purely on non-binding and non-authoritative political resolutions of the UN General Assembly, that the Court can exercise jurisdiction over disputed territory that is in the midst of an internationally recognized dispute-settlement process, defies all legal logic.

Since the ICC Statute is open to sovereign states only, and since no sovereign Palestinian state exists, and since there exists no Palestinian territory over which the Court could exercise its jurisdiction, the Pretrial Chamber, by any legal logic, should have rejected the contentions of the prosecutor, rather than attempt to prejudge and undermine the outcome of the negotiating process by determining that there exists sovereign Palestinian territory.

Sadly and regrettably, this decision not only irreparably harms the integrity and credibility of the ICC, and can undermine the Middle East peace negotiating process, since the Court, at the behest of its prosecutor, is attempting to prejudge the outcome of that process, contrary to all historic and legal logic.