An article in the UK Law Gazette was lamenting how the ICC has become a political organization which is better equipped to waste money than to resolve legal matters.
www.lawgazette.co.uk
The decision of the International Criminal Court’s three-judge ‘pre-trial chamber’ last week confirmed the view that the Hague-based court has succumbed to the dangerous politicisation of international legal institutions. All pretence has been dropped.
Established by the Rome Statute in 1998, and charged with bringing the perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice, the court suffers from an abysmal record. In 2012 it was resoundingly criticised for spending nearly a billion US dollars and taking 10 years to deliver its first judgment and matters have only worsened since then, with an independent expert review culminating in a damning report in 2020. The abandonment of any façade of adhering to the international rule of law must surely now be the final nail in the court’s coffin.
Over a year ago, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda requested confirmation of the court’s territorial jurisdiction with respect to her proposed investigation of Israel and the Palestinians. Given that Israel is not a State Party to the Rome Statute, the prosecutor’s question turned on whether the Palestinian Authority, which purported to join the Rome Statute in 2012, constitutes a state for the purposes of the court’s founding treaty and, if so, the extent of its territory.
This question necessarily involved consideration of the most fundamental principles of public international law, including the legal criteria for statehood. The chamber was warned off wading into the political quagmire of the prosecutor’s approach, which sidestepped the law. Seven ICC member states (the Czech Republic, Austria, Australia, Hungary, Germany, Brazil and Uganda) and numerous experts in international law provided amicus briefs, strenuously objecting to the prosecutor’s claims of jurisdiction.
ICC's Palestine ruling is a threat to international law
Assertion of territorial jurisdiction over Israeli-occupied territories is a purely political move.
www.lawgazette.co.uk
The decision of the International Criminal Court’s three-judge ‘pre-trial chamber’ last week confirmed the view that the Hague-based court has succumbed to the dangerous politicisation of international legal institutions. All pretence has been dropped.
Established by the Rome Statute in 1998, and charged with bringing the perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice, the court suffers from an abysmal record. In 2012 it was resoundingly criticised for spending nearly a billion US dollars and taking 10 years to deliver its first judgment and matters have only worsened since then, with an independent expert review culminating in a damning report in 2020. The abandonment of any façade of adhering to the international rule of law must surely now be the final nail in the court’s coffin.
Over a year ago, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda requested confirmation of the court’s territorial jurisdiction with respect to her proposed investigation of Israel and the Palestinians. Given that Israel is not a State Party to the Rome Statute, the prosecutor’s question turned on whether the Palestinian Authority, which purported to join the Rome Statute in 2012, constitutes a state for the purposes of the court’s founding treaty and, if so, the extent of its territory.
This question necessarily involved consideration of the most fundamental principles of public international law, including the legal criteria for statehood. The chamber was warned off wading into the political quagmire of the prosecutor’s approach, which sidestepped the law. Seven ICC member states (the Czech Republic, Austria, Australia, Hungary, Germany, Brazil and Uganda) and numerous experts in international law provided amicus briefs, strenuously objecting to the prosecutor’s claims of jurisdiction.
