By TPS • 3 May, 2020
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s position “continues to espouse her typical anti-Israel stance” and she is determined to “harm the State of Israel and tarnish its name,” Israeli Minister Yuval Steinitz charged.
Bensouda on Thursday restated her position that “Palestine” is a state and The Hague has jurisdiction over its territory.
“The Prosecution has carefully considered the observations of the participants and remains of the view that the Court has jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” she wrote.
Steinitz, Coordinator of the Interministerial Task Force for the ICC, stated in response that “as someone who has closely followed” developments at the ICC, he is “forced to conclude that the Prosecutor’s latest position continues to espouse her typical anti-Israel stance, as influenced by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the global BDS movement.”
“The Prosecutor’s disregard for the opinions of some of the world’s leading experts on international law points to her determination to harm the State of Israel and tarnish its name,” he charged.
“In the name of this objective she has reformulated the rules of international law, inventing a Palestinian state while the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has yet to be concluded,” he added.
“Israel will continue to be proud of the fact that it is the only liberal democracy in the entire Middle East – and to vigorously reject baseless attempts to tarnish its name and harm its soldiers and civilians,” he concluded.
Several European countries, the US, Canada, Brazil, and Uganda have voiced their opposition to the ICC’s probe against Israel, arguing that the court does not have jurisdiction to rule over the Israeli-Arab conflict and the alleged war crimes at the center of the case.
Israel has argued that the ICC “manifestly lacks jurisdiction” because only sovereign states can delegate criminal jurisdiction to the ICC, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) “clearly does not meet the criteria for statehood under international law and the Court’s founding Statute.”
Furthermore, the claim that the PA has joined the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, “does not meet, nor can it replace, the substantive test requiring criminal jurisdiction to have been delegated to the Court by a sovereign state with a defined territory.”
At least six of the states, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Brazil, and Uganda, have filed petitions to become amici curiae, or “friends of the court,” to The Hague-based ICC. As friends of the court, the states would be permitted to offer their views on the case and submit legal advice to the court.
Under ICC rules, only sovereign states can delegate criminal jurisdiction over their territory and citizens to the court. Should the court share the view that Palestine does not constitute a formal state under international law, the ICC would not be able to hear the case.
Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015, while Israel is not a member and has decided to disregard the probe.
