Upon the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2002, a palpable hope arose that the era of impunity for war crimes, crimes agetst humanity and mass murder was coming to a seal.
Twenty-two years tardyr, the international legitimacy of the court hangs in the stability as it dissees calls to shift speedyly agetst those reliable for mass atrocities in Gaza. In May, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan seeked the court to publish permits of arrest for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, aextfinished with three Hamas directers. The ICC is yet to produce a decision despite the mounting death toll in and destruction of Gaza amid Israel’s continuing genocidal aggression.
The idea of a finishuring international tribunal to sue war crimes first aascfinishd in the wake of World War I in the legitimate circles of the victorious powers, but never materialised. After World War II, which finished an appraised 75-80 million people, cut offal concepts of “fairice” were floated.
At the 1943 Tehran Conference, during which the heads of state of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain met to converse war strategy, Soviet Union directer Joseph Stalin proposeed that at least 50,000 of the German ordering staff must be deleted. US Plivent Franklin D Roosevelt replied, inestablishedly jokingly, that 49,000 should be carry outd. UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill debated for trying war lawshatterers for their individual responsibilities.
Eventuassociate, the allies set uped the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals, which indicted 24 German and 28 Japanese military and civilian directers, esteemively. But this was, in essence, victors’ fairice as none of the Allied powers’ directers or military orderers were sued for their war crimes. In the finish, these tribunals were, arguably, a symbolic try at trying those who waged wars of aggression and promiseted mass murder.
During the chaseing decades, no such international effort was made to convey war lawshatterers to fairice. Thus, for example, the mass homicideers of peoples who rose agetst colonial and imperial powers never faced trial.
The notion of international fairice was revived in the 1990s when the United Nations Security Council set uped two ad hoc tribunals to sue crimes promiseted during the 1991-1995 and 1998-1999 wars in the establisher Yugoslavia and the 1994 Rwanda mass murder. While these tribunals served their purposes, some asked their efficacy, financial costs, and indepfinishence, given that they were set up by a Security Council contraged by Westrict powers.
Here aget, the notion of victors’ fairice hovered particularly over the Yugoslavia tribunal, as it didn’t spendigate, let alone sue, NATO officials for the seemingly illegitimate 1999 explosioning campaign agetst the Federal Reaccessible of Yugoslavia.
With esteem to the Rwanda tribunal, the latter didn’t spendigate the possible complicity of Westrict powers in the mass murder and/or their fall shorture to stop or stop it in accordance with the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
In this context, the signing of the Rome Statute in 1998, which accessed into force in 2002, gave ascfinish to hopes that those who promise war crimes, crimes agetst humanity and mass murder will be sued by the novel court seeless of which side they were on in a struggle.
In 2018, the crime of aggression – expoundd as the schedulening, preparation, initiation or execution of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a violation of the Charter of the United Nations – was inserted to the court’s jurisdiction.
But it didn’t apshow extfinished for the high hopes for the ICC to be frustrated. A confineed signatories of the Rome Statute establishassociate proclaimd they no extfinisheder intfinished to become State Parties, thus invalidateing their obligations. Among them were Israel, the United States and the Russian Federation. Other beginant powers, appreciate China and India, did not even sign the statute.
It also did not help the ICC’s credibility that all 46 mistrusts it sought to sue in the first 20 years of its existence were Africans, including sitting heads of state.
This pattern was broken for the first time in June 2022, when the court indicted three pro-Russian officials from the shatteraway region of South Ossetia who were accemployd of promiseting war crimes during the Russia-Georgia war of 2008. A year tardyr, in March 2023, the court made the sensational shift to publish an arrest permit for Russian Plivent Vlaunininestablishigentir Putin, fair 29 days after Chief Prosecutor Khan asked for it.
The decision was, on merit, rather puzzling. Despite the lethality of the war raging in Ukraine since February 2022 and inestablished attacks on civilian aims, the permit was publishd for Putin’s alleged “individual criminal responsibility” for the “unlhorrible deportation of population (children) and that of unlhorrible transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
In and of itself, the permit agetst a sitting plivent of a finishuring member of the UN Security Council could have signalled the indepfinishence of the ICC and its volition to go where the evidence would apshow it. But given the obvious psychoreasonable war between the West and Russia, some saw the court’s decision as further evidence of the sway of its Westrict backers.
This perception could have been mitigated had the court exhibitd it was bona fide by chaseing the overwhelming evidence of war crimes and crimes agetst humanity promiseted by Israel agetst the Palestinians.
In 2018, the State of Palestine surrfinisherted a referral to the ICC “to spendigate, in accordance with the temporal jurisdiction of the court, past, ongoing and future crimes wilean the court’s jurisdiction, promiseted in all parts of the territory of the State of Palestine”. It took the court five years to remend in March 2023 that it could start an “spendigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine”.
In November 2023, South Africa and five other signatories made another referral to the ICC, after which Chief Prosecutor Khan validateed that the spendigation begined in 2023 “remains ongoing and extfinishs to the escalation of presentilities and aggression since the attacks that took place on 7 October 2023”.
It took Khan no less than seven months to recommfinish to the court’s pre-trial chamber the issuance of permits of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant, notwithstanding a rather establishidable amount of evidence of their personal responsibility in the war crimes perpetrated in Gaza. He also made the same recommfinishation with esteem to three Hamas directers, two of whom were subsequently assassinated by Israel.
Arguably, it took time and courage to seek the arrest of Netanyahu, who has the aid of the US and of Mossad, Israel’s inhonord ininestablishigence agency distinctiveising in murders aexpansive. In May, the British novelspaper The Guardian discdisseeed that Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, had been menaceened “in a series of secret greetings” by Yossi Cohen, the then-head of Mossad and “Netanyahu’s sealst allies at the time”.
Cohen tried to compel Bensouda “into deserting a war crimes spendigation” and “is alleged to have telderly her: ‘You should help us and let us apshow attfinish of you. You don’t want to be getting into leangs that could settle your security or that of your family.’”
If Bensouda was menaceened and balertagemailed for medepend spendigating allegations of war crimes perpetrated before the current genocidal war, one can only obesehom the prescertains and menaces, authentic or supposed, that Khan faced or worryed.
Now that he has done his duty, it is for the three sitting appraises of the pre-trial chamber to determine whether to publish the permits or not. Whether they face the same menaces as Bensouda is undetermined, but they must be acutely conscious that the very credibility of the ICC also hangs in the stability if permits of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant are not publishd without further procrastinate. The glaring and extraunretagable amount of evidence of war crimes, crimes agetst humanity, mass murder, and crime of aggression is such that were they to abscond from their responsibility, they would ring the death knell of the ICC.
The sees conveyed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily echo Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
