The Court of Appeal in The Hague in February ordered the government to stop exporting components due to concerns that they would be used to violate international law in the Gaza war, prompting the government to say that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

“According to the advocate general (of the Supreme Court), the Court of Appeal was justified in finding that there is a clear risk that Israel’s F-35 fighter jets are being used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip,” the court’s advisor explained.

The Netherlands houses one of several regional warehouses of US-owned F-35 components, which are distributed to countries that request them, including Israel, which has requested at least one shipment since 7 October, 2023.

The Supreme Court said it would rule on the appeal as soon as possible, without giving a specific date.

br> Image by Military_Material from Pixabay

Human rights groups that brought the case against the state, including Oxfam Netherlands, welcomed the court’s recommendation.

“The government should wait no longer and change course. The complicity in the atrocious violence in Gaza needs to stop as quickly as possible,” the group urged in a statement.

Gaza officials confirmed the Israeli war has killed nearly 44,200 people and caused nearly all of Gaza’s population to be displaced at least once, while vast areas of the territory have been destroyed.

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But a term that many seem to agree on is that the warrants represent an earthquake, though many are doubtful that Netanyahu will actually see his day in court.

The pro-Palestine camp, which as of late represents the majority of humankind, is torn between disbelief, skepticism and optimism. It turned out that the international system has a pulse, after all, though faint, but is enough to rekindle hope that legal and moral accountability are still possible.

This mixture of feelings and strong language is a reflection of several important and interconnected experiences: one, the unprecedented extermination of a whole population which is currently being carried out by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza; two, the utter failure of the international community to stop the grisly genocide in the Strip; and, finally, the fact that the international legal system has historically failed to hold Israel, or any of the West’s allies anywhere, accountable to international law.

The real earthquake is the fact that this is the first time in the history of the ICC that a pro-western leader is held accountable for war crimes. Indeed, historically, the vast majority of arrest warrants, and actual detention of accused war criminals seemed to target the Global South, Africa in particular.

Israel, however, is not an ordinary “western” state. Zionism was a western-colonial invention, and the creation of Israel was only possible because of unhindered, die-hard western support.

Since its inception on the ruins of historic Palestine in 1948, Israel has served the role of the western-colonial citadel in the Middle East. The entire Israeli political discourse has been tailored and situated within western priorities and supposed values: civilisation, democracy, enlightenment, human rights and the like.

With time, Israel became largely an American project, embraced by American liberals and religious conservatives alike.

America’s religious crowds were motivated by the biblical notion that “whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, And whoever curses Israel will be cursed.” The liberals, too, held Israel within a spiritual discourse, although disproportionately favoured the classification of Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East”, constantly emphasising the “special relationship”, the “unbreakable bond” and the rest.

Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu, as a representative of the political establishment in Israel, and Gallant, as the leader of the military class, is also an indictment of the United States.

It is often reported that Israel would not have been able to carry on with its war – genocide – on Gaza without American military and political support. According to the investigative news website ProPublica, in the first year of the war, the US shipped over 50,000 tonnes of weaponry to Israel.

Mainstream American media and journalists are also culpable in that genocide. They elevated the now war criminals Netanyahu and Gallant, along with other Israeli political and military leaders, as if they were the defenders of a “civilised world” against the “barbarians”. Those in the conservative media circles portrayed them as if they were prophets doing God’s work against the supposed heathens of the South.

“ICC Warrant,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

They, too, have been indicted by the ICC, the kind of moral indictment, and “hard stigma”, that can never be eradicated.

When Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, originally filed for arrest warrants in May, many were in doubt, and justifiably so. The Israelis felt that their country commanded the needed support to disallow such warrants in the first place. They cited previous attempts, including a Belgian court case where victims of Israeli brutality in Lebanon attempted to hold former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accountable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Not only was the case dropped in 2003, but Belgium was pressured by the US to change its own laws so that they do not include universal jurisdiction in the case of genocide.

The Americans, too, were not too worried, as they were ready to punish ICC judges, defame Khan himself, and, according to a recent social media post by US Senator Tom Cotton, ready to “invade the Hague”.

In fact, this is not the first time that Americans, who are not signatories of the Rome Statute, thus not members of the ICC, flexed their muscles against those who merely attempted to enforce international law. In September 2020, the US government imposed sanctions on then-Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior official, Phakiso Mochochoko.

Even those who wanted to see accountability for the Israeli genocide were in doubt, especially as pro-Israeli western governments, like that of Germany, stepped forward to prevent the warrants from being issued. Unreasonable delays in the proceedings contributed to the skepticism, especially as Khan himself was suddenly being paraded for supposed “sexual misconduct”.

Yet, after all of this, on 21 November the arrest warrants were issued, charging Netanyahu and Gallant with alleged “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” – the other punishable offenses within the ICC jurisdiction being genocide and aggression.

Considering that the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has already found that it is plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and is currently investigating the case, Israel, as a state, and top Israeli leaders have suddenly, and deservingly so, become the enemies of humanity.

While it is right and legitimate to argue that what matters most is the tangible outcome of these cases – ending the genocide while holding the Israeli war criminals accountable – we must not miss the greater meaning of these earth-shattering events.

The ICJ and the ICC are essentially two western institutions created to police the world by reinforcing the double standards resulting from the post-World War II western-dominated international system.

They are the legal equivalent of the Bretton Woods agreement, which regulated the international monetary system to serve US western interests. Though, in theory, they championed universally commendable values, in practice they merely served as tools of control and dominance for the western order.

For years, the world has been in a state of obvious and irreversible change. New powers were rising and others were shrinking. Political turmoil in the US, Britain and France were only reflections of the internal struggle in the west’s ruling classes. The incredible rise of China, the war in Europe and the growing resistance in the Middle East were outcomes and accelerators of that change.

Thus the constant call for reforms in the post-WWII international system to reflect in a more equitable way the new global realities. Despite American-western resistance to change, new geopolitical formations continued to take place, regardless.

The Gaza genocide represents a watershed moment in these global dynamics. This was reflected in Karim Khan’s language when he requested the arrest warrants, stressing on the credibility of the court. “This is why we have a court,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNN on 20 May. “It’s about the equal application of the law. No people are better than another. No people anywhere are saints.”

The emphasis on credibility here is a culmination of the obvious loss of credibility on all fronts. This should hardly be a surprise as it was in the west, the self-proclaimed champion of human rights, the very political entity that championed, defended and sustained the Israeli genocide.

While one would like to believe that the ICC’s arrest warrants were made exclusively for the sake of the victims of the Israeli genocide, plenty of evidence suggests that the unexpected move was a desperate western attempt at salvaging whatever little credibility it had maintained up to that moment.

The US government, an unrepentant violator of human rights, has maintained its strong position in defence of Israel, shaming the ICC for the warrants, not the Israeli war criminals for committing the genocide.

The conflict in Europe has been much more palpable, however, reflected in the position of Germany, which said it would “carefully examine” the arrest warrants but that it is “hard to imagine that we would make arrests on this basis”.

One remains hopeful that the shifts of global powers will eventually save international law from the hypocrisy and opportunism of the west. But what is clear for now is that the west’s own conflict will only gain momentum. Will those who created the Zionist Israeli menace be the very powers that demolish it? One is doubtful.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

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“France is committed to international justice and its independence,” Barrot said in an interview for France 3 TV channel.

“We have been saying from the very beginning that Israel has the right to defend itself within the framework of respect for international law.”

“Each time Israel violates international law, blocking access to aid, bombing civilians, forcibly displacing them, establishing colonies in the West Bank.”

He added they “strongly” condemn these actions.

Asked if he supported the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Barrot said: “I cannot put myself in the position of the court in any circumstance.”

Barrot argued that the ICC’s arrest warrant amounted to “the formalization of the accusation against certain politicians.”

Regarding the question of whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he visited France, Barrot said: “France will always apply international law.”

The ICC, in a landmark move on Thursday, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,000 people, most of them women and children.

It has also engaged in cross-border warfare with Lebanon, launching an air campaign in late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

Middle East Monitor

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——

Bonus Video Added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. What’s next? | The Take”

(The Conversation) – The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif. The court claims both sides have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes from the day Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 onwards.

Although a warrant was issued for Deif, Israel has said he was killed in an air strike in July. But Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this claim. If they were ever to be judged at the ICC, a conviction is conceivable.

The charges of the court against Netanyahu are severe. The three-judge panel unanimously said that he and Gallant are “co-perpetrators for committing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

The judges also “found reasonable grounds to believe that they bear criminal responsibility” … “for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”. The charges are also backed by the work of the International Court of Justice, which has found that it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts in Gaza that violate the Genocide Convention.

If arrested, Netanyahu would go through a trial, and he could then be acquitted, or convicted. In the latter case, Netanyahu would join the ranks of leaders considered perpetrators of crimes against humanity, such as Charles Taylor of Liberia, Hissène Habré of Chad, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Radovan Karadžić of Serbia, Idi Amin of Uganda, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Joseph Stalin of the former Soviet Union, Mao Zedong of China, and Adolf Hitler of Germany.

“War Criminal,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

Next steps

The arrest warrants rely on ICC member states carrying them out. And this is by no means a foregone conclusion. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has been wanted by the court since 2023 for his role in directing attacks at civilians in Ukraine and illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

But Putin was not arrested on a recent visit to Mongolia, a state that is party to the ICC, after the Mongolian authorities had assured him he would be safe. That said, he was unable to travel to South Africa when leaders from the Brics economic bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met in Johannesburg in 2023.

This was due to the experience in South Africa of former Sudanese president, Omar Al-Bashir. Bashir, for whom the ICC granted arrest warrants in 2009 and 2010 for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage against civilians in Darfur, travelled to South Africa in 2015 to attend an African Union summit. But he had to leave abruptly for fear of arrest.

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2016 that the government’s failure to arrest him was unlawful. And the ICC ruled against South Africa on its “shameful failure” to arrest Bashir the following year. He was also able to travel freely to other ICC member states, including Chad, Kenya and Jordan.

Bashir was overthrown in a military coup in 2019 and placed under arrest. He is now persona non grata in Sudan where he was convicted of corruption, sentenced to two years in prison, and is being investigated for his role in the coup that brought him to power.

Not arresting criminals inflicts damage on the ICC, which already has a weak record of prosecutions. For example, after former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagb, was charged then acquitted. But it also takes away a major opportunity to achieve justice for victims of serious crimes.

Dramatic political implications

The likelihood of Netanyahu, who has become the first ever leader of a western country to be charged by the ICC, appearing at the Hague is low. But the political implications of the arrest warrants for Netanyahu are, at any rate, dramatic.

Netanyahu knew the ICC would be able to hold him to account for his political decisions, and this is exactly why he disapproved of Palestine joining the ICC in 2015.

In practice, Netanyahu might lose even more legitimacy in his own country than he has done already with some groups. Civil society groups in Israel are following the work of the ICC very closely.

B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based non-profit organisation that documents human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, has said that the ICC intervention and ICJ rulings “are a chance for us, Israelis, to realise that … upholding a regime of supremacy, violence and oppression necessarily involves crimes and severe violation of human rights”.

Netanyahu will also be limited in his travels, and viewed as a pariah in many of the 124 states that are party to the ICC. This is a view that would be shared by most leaders of European states, including Germany. In May, a spokesperson for the German government hinted that Germany would arrest Netanyahu should warrants be issued.

The EU is, for the moment, unlikely to be able to use its global human rights’ sanctions regime against Netanyahu, which allows targeted measures against foreign nationals who are deemed responsible for gross violations of human rights. This is because unanimity across the bloc is necessary, and some states such as Austria, Czechia, Hungary and Germany could be reluctant to agree to this. Even the French foreign ministry spokesperson said: “It’s a point that is legally complex.” But the EU is a strong supporter of the ICC, so there will be pressure in governments of all EU states to act against Netanyahu.

The political implications of this decision are not isolated to Netanyahu. Pro-Palestinian protest activity has taken place at over 500 US colleges since October 7. And the UK has now joined most EU states in supporting Netanyahu’s arrest.

The US is now very much isolated among western countries in its lack of support for international law. The ICC, on the other hand, is becoming increasingly visible in its quest for international justice for victims.

Catherine Gegout, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Nottingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A Year of Violence: A Tragedy for Palestine

For over a year, the Israeli occupation authorities have pursued increasingly aggressive military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, with entire neighborhoods razed, hospitals bombed, and essential infrastructure destroyed. The blockade of Gaza has deepened, leaving millions without access to necessities such as adequate water, food, and medical care. This is not just warfare; it is the systematic destruction of a people -— genocide, according to many scholars and human rights organizations.

What is perhaps most disheartening is the international community’s response — or lack thereof. Despite widespread documentation of war crimes, including targeting civilians, collective punishment, and disproportionate use of force, there has been no meaningful intervention. Israel’s actions flagrantly violate international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilians and calls for the protection of those in occupied territories. Yet, condemnation from global institutions has been largely symbolic, devoid of enforcement or consequences.

Lebanon: The Conflict Expands

Now, as Israel extends its military campaign into Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah, the crisis has escalated into a regional conflict. The Lebanese civilian population, already struggling under economic collapse and political instability, now faces the terrifying prospect of attacks. As with Gaza and the West Bank, civilians are caught in the crossfire, and international law once again appears impotent in the face of aggression.

The expansion of conflict raises broader geopolitical concerns. The Middle East has long been a powder keg, and Israel’s unchecked military actions risk pulling the region into greater chaos. Yet, despite these dire consequences, the international community remains largely passive, offering only calls for restraint and diplomacy, which ring hollow in the absence of real accountability.

The Collapse of International Law

This ongoing crisis exposes the deep flaws within the international legal system. Israel’s continued breaches of international humanitarian law, from illegal settlements to disproportionate military force, challenge the very foundation of the post-World War II order. International law is designed to prevent such atrocities, yet when its mechanisms fail to hold powerful actors accountable, it becomes a dead letter.

The role of international organizations, particularly the United Nations, is central to this failure. The UN, founded to prevent the horrors of war and promote human rights, has become a symbol of ineffectiveness. UN resolutions condemning Israeli actions have been met with vetoes by powerful member states, most notably the United States, rendering the institution powerless. Year after year, the Security Council has been paralyzed, and while the UN General Assembly passes resolutions condemning the violence, these carry no legal weight.

The UN Secretary-General’s recent statements, calling for ceasefires and peace negotiations, are admirable but fall far short of addressing the root problem: the lack of enforcement. If international law cannot be enforced against powerful states, particularly when geopolitical interests are involved, it loses credibility in the eyes of the world. On the one hand, Israel has declared the UN Secretary-General as “persona non grata.” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed that Guterres, whom he described as anti-Israel, ‘supports terrorists, rapists, and murderers.’

In a written statement released by the Foreign Ministry, it was reported that Guterres was declared ‘persona non grata’ for not explicitly condemning the Iranian missile attack on Israel. ‘No one who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s vile attack on Israel deserves to set foot on Israeli soil,’ Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, claiming that Guterres, whom he described as anti-Israel, ‘supports terrorists, rapists, and murderers.’ Katz also argued that Guterres stands with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran, which he described as ‘the mother of global terrorism,’ and said that Guterres will go down in UN history as a ‘black stain.’ As we can see, Israel demands not only substantial support from individual states but also knee-jerk support from international organizations.

The Failure of Political Will

The problem, however, extends beyond institutional failures. At its core, the crisis reflects a lack of political will among world leaders to prioritize human rights and justice over strategic alliances and national interests. Israel’s position as a close ally of the United States and other Western powers shields it from meaningful consequences. This political reality undermines international law, creating a world where rules apply only to the weak, while the powerful operate with impunity. As public trust in international organizations erodes, so does the belief in the effectiveness of international law. This erosion has long-term consequences, not only for the Palestinian people but for global stability. If the world allows the precedent of unchecked violence and lawlessness to continue, other conflicts may follow, and other authoritarian regimes may exploit the international system’s weaknesses.
Where Do We Go from Here?

The current situation demands more than empty rhetoric and non-binding resolutions. If international law is to remain a force for justice, it must be enforced consistently, without regard to political alliances. This requires a fundamental overhaul of global institutions like the UN, which must become more democratic and less beholden to the vetoes of powerful nations. International courts, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), must be empowered to investigate and prosecute war crimes without political interference. The world cannot afford to stand idly by while a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Palestine and now threatens to engulf Lebanon. Global leaders must rise above their national interests and act in the name of justice, not only for the sake of the Palestinian people but for the integrity of international law itself. The time for decisive action is now, and the world must not let another year of violence and impunity pass.

Erosion of Public Trust

International law, particularly humanitarian law, is designed to protect human rights, prevent atrocities, and promote peace and justice on a global scale. Organizations like the United Nations (UN), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and various international treaties are supposed to provide mechanisms for accountability. However, when these institutions are unable—or unwilling—to enforce their rules, public trust in them erodes.

That Israel can attack Palestinians, routinely violating international law without consequence, sends a message to the global public that these laws are impotent. The inability to hold powerful states accountable creates the perception that international law is applied selectively, undermining its legitimacy. People lose faith in these institutions when they see that global powers can act with impunity, leading to cynicism about the entire international order. This erosion of trust can be deeply damaging. Citizens around the world may start to believe that international organizations are incapable of protecting human rights or negotiating an end to wars. The loss of confidence in these bodies weakens their authority, making it harder for them to mediate future conflicts, provide humanitarian aid, or broker peace agreements.

A Global Crisis for Humanity

When international law fails, it is not just the immediate victims of conflict who suffer. The breakdown of these systems can lead to a broader global crisis for humanity. The unchecked violation of human rights and international humanitarian law contributes to a cycle of violence, displacement, and instability that affects millions. Refugee crises, for example, often stem from conflicts where international law is disregarded, forcing entire populations to flee their homes in search of safety. Moreover, when international organizations are unable to intervene effectively, it emboldens other states or actors to disregard international norms, setting a dangerous precedent. This can lead to a proliferation of conflicts and human rights abuses, as countries see that there are no real consequences for violating international law. The result is a global jungle where might makes right, and the rules meant to protect the vulnerable are ignored.

“Lawless,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / PS Express, 2024

In the long term, this instability can contribute to global crises, such as the rise of extremism, the collapse of states, and increased poverty and suffering. When people no longer believe that international law can protect them, they may turn to other, often more violent, forms of resistance or support authoritarian regimes that promise stability over justice. This creates a vicious cycle where international organizations lose their ability to intervene meaningfully, further eroding trust and exacerbating global instability.

Beyond the undeniable failure of institutions, courts, and international law, this situation sends a stark message to the world: if what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon were to happen to us, there would be no mechanism or institution to protect us. Perhaps this is the intended outcome — to make us feel utter despair, to break our spirit, and to compel us to bow to power. But it is precisely for this reason that we will continue to resist, to fight, and to defend human rights with as much resolve as the people of Gaza.

(The Conversation) – The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, has been a prominent figure in the news in recent years. In 2023, he requested – and was granted – a warrant for the arrest of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

He then dived into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in May 2024, requesting arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israel in response to the ongoing violence in the Middle East. The ICC is expected to make a decision on whether to accept Khan’s request in the coming days.

The prosecutor is responsible for initiating investigations when there are reasonable grounds to believe that one of the four international crimes within the ICC’s jurisdiction has been committed. These crimes are war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.

The prosecutor may initiate an investigation if it is requested by either the UN Security Council or one of the ICC’s 124 member states. But they can also open an investigation on their own initiative, as has happened in the Israel-Hamas case and on several occasions before.

Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, opened an investigation against Israel in 2021. And the current events were, somewhat controversially, addressed as part of this case. The US and others have argued that, given the events of October 7, Khan should have opened a new investigation, and that the failure to do so raises concerns about due process.

When determining whether to proceed with an investigation, the prosecutor must consider various factors. These include the ability and willingness of the relevant state to conduct its own investigation into the alleged crimes.

If the prosecutor is satisfied that the state is genuinely investigating the suspected crimes, then they will defer to the state and refrain from further action. This act of deference is known in international law as the principle of complementarity.

It is this element – the state’s ability and willingness to investigate alleged crimes on its own – that has drawn the ire of certain politicians regarding Khan’s decision to request arrest warrants.

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, commented in a press statement that the prosecutor “rush[ed] to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed”.

Germany, which intervened in the case in support of Israel, made a similar remark. It stated that, as Israel is currently at war, it should have been “given an appropriate and genuine opportunity to put its accountability mechanisms into action”.

Whether the court accepts that the prosecutor acted too hastily will be clarified in its imminent decision.

Another unique element in the process leading to the request for arrest warrants was the prosecutor’s appointment of an independent panel of legal advisers. The task of this panel was to assist Khan with “evidence review and legal analysis”.

The panel’s appointment and its work, however, has attracted some criticism. Certain legal experts have argued that the selection process for panel members was flawed, that the panel’s experts lacked the necessary expertise to evaluate controversial facts, and that the panel did not cite its evidential sources.

Some also accused certain members of impartiality, referencing previous public comments on the Israel-Hamas dispute. These critical remarks gained media attention and were echoed by various outlets.

“Butcher in Chains,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3/ Clip2Comic, 2024.

It is important to clarify that the panel’s mandate was only to advise Khan on his decision to request arrest warrants. Ultimately, it is Khan’s work and his evaluation of the facts – not the panel’s – that will be reviewed by the court. Thus, the controversies surrounding the panel’s role are possibly overstated.

Serious consequences

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what will happen next should the court accept Khan’s request and issue arrest warrants? The ICC’s history of issuing arrest warrants is mixed, with well-known defendants such as Vladimir Putin, Omar al-Bashir, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Joseph Kony still at large.

The warrants are also unlikely to lead to arrests in the current case. It is hard to imagine Israel handing over its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, to the Hague. And it is just as unlikely that Palestine will hand over Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.

However, these warrants are expected to have significant consequences, particularly for Israel. To begin with, Israeli leaders will probably avoid travelling to any of the ICC’s member states, as these countries are obligated to arrest them upon entry.

The same faith is less likely to harm Palestine’s foreign affairs given that these are led by the Palestinian Authority and not by Hamas.

Should the ICC determine that Israel’s leaders are responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, this decision will probably lead to increased political isolation and sanctions.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, several countries have suspended the sale of weapons to Israel. The UK followed suit in early September, announcing that it would suspend 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel. This decision could easily be expanded in scope.

The economic impact of an ICC decision to issue arrest warrants would also be severe. It may lead certain investors and funds to disengage and divest from Israel. Many funds have ethical policies that prevent them from engaging in activities that support or contribute to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The effect of the decision could reverberate through the ICC, too. In June, the US House of Representatives passed legislation to sanction the ICC and its officials for requesting arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.

This legislation is unlikely to be accepted by the US Senate and become law. But the upcoming US elections, and the prospect of a Republican administration, may not bode well for Khan and his staff.

During his previous term in the White House, Donald Trump imposed personal sanctions on Bensouda in response to her investigations into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan and Palestine.

There is no doubt that the arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, if issued, will have significant implications. But the extent to which they will affect this decades-old conflict, and whether they will help enforce the international rule of law, is not yet clear.

Avidan Kent, Professor of Law, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – It has been 75 years since the adoption of the Geneva Conventions on August 12 1949. In theory, these rules of war are universally agreed by every nation. In practice, they are routinely violated everywhere.

With an estimated 120 armed conflicts worldwide, more than 450 armed groups and 195 million people living in areas under their control, the protection of the vulnerable is as vitally important as ever.

As the news headlines remind us daily, however, international humanitarian law can seem like too little, too late when faced with military might and political indifference.

This year also marks other, less hopeful, anniversaries: ten years since the genocide against the Yazidi by ISIS in Syria, and ten years of war in Ukraine. Geopolitical tensions are escalating in the Middle East and the South China Sea.

Given the modern technologies used on today’s battlefields (and in cyberspace), and the violation of even basic humanitarian protections, is there much to celebrate in 2024? Are the Geneva Conventions still fit for purpose for today’s wars – and tomorrow’s?

Humanitarian values

All societies have cultural, religious or legal rules of some kind around war. But in the aftermath of World War II’s extreme horrors, the world agreed to a detailed set of codified rules governing armed conflict.

Despite differing political views and experiences of war, countries agreed to the Geneva Convention rules by striking a balance between military need and humanitarian ideals for the treatment of civilians, captured enemy soldiers and the dead.

The 1949 Conventions remain the core of international humanitarian law, or the laws of armed conflict. This body of law has been expanded over the years by other treaties and protocols dealing with civil war, chemical weapons, antipersonnel landmines, torture and enforced disappearances.

Designed to help prevent a spiral of tit-for-tat atrocities, many of the rules work due to reciprocal respect between combatants: treat our soldiers well when captured and we will do likewise.

But they also demand the humane treatment of people caught up in war, even if one warring party has breached those rules or started the war in violation of the United Nations Charter that prohibits aggression.

Four conventions, 400 articles

The Geneva Conventions include more than 400 articles, setting out detailed rules for the treatment of prisoners, protecting hospitals and medical staff, allowing humanitarian aid, and prohibiting torture, rape and sexual violence.

In fact, four conventions were adopted in 1949. The first three’s provisions built on existing laws protecting wounded soldiers on the battlefield, at sea and when captured as prisoners.

The key fourth convention sought to protect civilians living under the power of an adversary, such as in occupied territory.

A single article provided fundamental rules about the humane treatment of people during a civil war – the first time international law had dared to regulate violence occurring within a country rather than between two or more.

War and peace

Some say international humanitarian law took the wrong approach back in the 1860s when the very first Geneva Convention was adopted, because it accepted war and gave up on insisting on peace.

As the scholar Samuel Moyn has argued, this has forced us to choose between the ideal of opposing war in the first place and opposing the crimes that take place within it.

Humanitarian law also accepts a minimum level of harm to civilians as “collateral damage” during an attack on a military target. In other words, not all civilian deaths are war crimes.

And some articles in the conventions seem old-fashioned today – tobacco is mentioned together with food and water for prisoners of war, for example.

But in my own experience working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, I have seen international humanitarian law in action. When respected, it can save and improve lives.

Eternal vigilance

Warring parties everywhere still allow the Red Cross to visit thousands of detained people, and to negotiate about improving their treatment.

Combatants make agreements for prisoner swaps, hostage release, return of the dead, and the provision of medical care to wounded enemy soldiers.

Sometimes, countries investigate war crimes allegations. And the conventions make it possible for warring parties to make other agreements for even greater protections.

And while the Geneva Conventions, and international humanitarian law more generally, are far from perfect, the rules seek a basic limit on the worst humanity has to offer, insisting on some fundamental human dignity.

To ensure they are at least not actively breached, and ideally their protections extended, countries must do three key things:

• focus on collective responsibility, comply with the law themselves, and ensure respect by others

• stop using technical legal arguments to legitimise large-scale devastation in ways that ignore the fundamental humanitarian purpose of the rules

• and resist any claim by a nation state that exceptional national security threats (including terrorism, insurgency or new technologies) justify the rules being abandoned.

It is precisely in the gravest situations, when politics and other laws have failed to prevent war, that these rules are most needed. Greater respect for them would go a long way to saving lives and preventing the horrors we see in today’s conflicts.

Marnie Lloydd, Senior Lecturer in Law and Co-Director New Zealand Centre for Public Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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American Red Cross: “The Geneva Conventions at 75: How do they stay relevant?”

“US officials are well aware of the mounting evidence that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in Gaza, including most likely with US weapons,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “US lawmakers should be seriously concerned about the liability risks of continuing to provide arms and intelligence based on Israel’s flimsy assurances that it’s abiding by the laws of war.” 

In 2023, the Biden administration introduced a revised conventional arms export policy that adjusted its approach, reducing “the level of certainty required to deny an arms transfer” from “actual knowledge to a more likely than not determination that the arms will be used to commit, facilitate the commission of, or aggravate the risk of international law violations.” Domestic laws also require a risk assessment before providing security assistance and establish red lines for when assistance is not allowed.

Yet the Biden administration reported to Congress in May that Israeli forces were complying with US domestic policies and laws on arms transfers. In March, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam warned that the Israeli government’s assurances to the Biden administration that it is meeting US legal requirements were not credible. The two organizations jointly submitted a dossier to the State Department showing Israeli forces’ violations of international humanitarian law, including blocking humanitarian assistance and carrying out unlawful strikes that killed civilians. 

Israeli forces have unlawfully attacked residential buildings, medical facilities, and aid workers, restricted medical evacuations, and used starvation as a weapon of war in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 500,000 people are experiencing a “catastrophic” lack of food in famine-like conditions. A staggering more than 38,600 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

Israeli authorities have detained and mistreated thousands of Palestinians, with persistent reports of torture. In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have killed over 500 Palestinians since October 7, settlers and soldiers have displaced entire Palestinian communities, destroying every home, with the apparent backing of higher Israeli authorities and effectively confiscating Palestinians’ lands.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and dozens of media reports, including by CNN, NPR, the New York Times, and AFP, have identified US weapons being used in unlawful Israeli attacks that killed scores of civilians and aid workers. 

In May, President Biden announced that the US would pause at least one shipment of weapons containing 2,000-pound bombs, 500-pound bombs, and artillery projectiles to Israel. In July, the administration clarified that it was only holding back the 2,000-pound bombs and that it would be releasing the 500-pound bombs to Israel. It said that its “concern” was about “the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs, particularly for Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding.” 

In recent years, legal scholars and US lawmakers warned that US support – including through weapons sales – to Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen could expose US officials to legal liability for war crimes. 

In 2016, according to media reports, State Department officials reviewing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia expressed concerns that jurisprudence from international tribunals could offer precedent for their own liability. In an unsent draft letter to the secretary of state, a State Department lawyer concluded that US officials could potentially be charged with war crimes for the Saudi-led coalition’s conduct in Yemen. 

In 2020, when discussing the risk presented by continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School professor and a Defense Department lawyer in the Obama administration, told the New York Times, “If I were in the State Department, I would be freaking out about my potential for liability. I think anyone who’s involved in this program should get themselves a lawyer. It’s very dangerous territory the US is in, continuing to provide support given the number of civilians who have been killed.”

In 2022, US Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Lee sent letters to the Defense and State Departments, calling for “thorough investigations into possible US complicity to civilian harm in Yemen.”

A state assisting another state or a nonstate armed group may be complicit in war crimes and other wrongdoing if their assistance knowingly and significantly contributes to the wrongful act. Individuals can be found complicit for “aiding and abetting” in war crimes under international law. 

The United States and other weapons suppliers should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, Human Rights Watch said. The Biden administration should use its leverage with Israel to save lives, including by military aid and the imposition of targeted sanctions, to press Israeli authorities to enable the provision of humanitarian aid and basic services, and cease committing grave abuses in Gaza.

Via Human Rights Watch

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

TRT Video: “One on One | Interview with Former American Diplomat Hala Rharrit: Ex-US diplomat says US complicit in Gaza genocide”

On Wednesday, the Chair of the Commission, Navi Pillay and fellow Commissioner Chris Sidoti held a news conference on the occasion of their formal presentation of the report to the HRC.

Navi Pillay is a former High Court justice from South Africa and has served in key positions at the United Nations, having been initially nominated by Nelson Mandela, including that of High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008-2014). As an attorney in her native land, she litigated against detention without trial in the Apartheid period; her own husband suffered such unlawful imprisonment.

Chris Sidoti, a prominent attorney, was Australian Human Rights Commissioner and has adjunct positions at several Australian universities.

The Commission examined thousands of open source reports, including satellite imagery and forensic medical reports, and interviewed hundreds of people but Israel prevented them from speaking to victims of October 7 or released hostages in Israel and they were blocked from going into Gaza, apparently by Hamas. They were able to interview Palestinians who lived through the Israeli military campaign in Gaza who had managed to get out to Cairo, Istanbul and other cities.

I ran the YouTube transcript of the press conference through ChatGPT to clean it up and am quoting excerpts from that text below.

Pillay observed, “In the eight months since October 7, tens of thousands of children, women, and men have been killed and injured. Palestinians, Israelis, and citizens of other states have been affected. Thousands of Palestinians have been detained and are being held incommunicado, and 120 Israeli hostages are still held in Gaza. So, the enormity of this tragedy overwhelms us, and we are deeply disturbed by the immense human suffering.”

Sidoti then said for his part, “It’s completely understandable how deeply traumatic the events on and since October 7 have been for Jewish people in Israel and the diaspora around the world and for Palestinian people and the diaspora. Palestinians have experienced 70 or 80 years of dispossession, occupation, and human rights violations, and this has now come on top of that. For Jewish people, the experience of millennia of persecution is immediate and direct. Although I’m neither Palestinian nor Jewish and have not had those experiences, I try to understand how deep and traumatizing what has occurred is not only for those directly affected but for all from the communities that have been affected.”

Sidoti underlined how stressful the work was for the Commissioners and their staff: “It’s been a difficult assignment to deal with the overwhelming nature of the events, not just the statistics, although they themselves lead to a sense of despair, but also the personal stories.”

Pillay said in reply to a question from Reuters about the implications of the report for the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, “I’m particularly concerned about issues that do not receive focus, such as the 8,500 people being held in detention, just picked up and held incommunicado. I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and that’s what I did as a defense lawyer, and brought out the issue of torture that happens in incommunicado, indefinite detention. My husband was also detained, so there is a personal experience there. I agree with Chris that we are independent information gatherers. We want to be very fair and address all issues, but we fully appreciate the impact on victims in any conflict. That’s the importance of this work.”

She added, “I am hopeful, and it’s true I was at the ICJ yesterday in another capacity. Fulfilling hope—for the first time, the General Assembly has asked the International Court of Justice for its opinion on whether the occupation itself is unlawful and whether occupation is the root cause of the conflict because that’s what we’re hearing from people on the ground. Something that had not happened in about 70 years has now happened because of the recommendations made by this commission.”

She said, “I am fairly certain that our reports will be relied on, particularly by the International Criminal Court. They need evidence. The authorities in Israel have declared as terrorist groups some of the NGOs that had announced they would be providing information and cooperating with the ICC. Just for that statement, some of them have now been rendered out of action.”

She explained, “We have a memorandum of understanding with the prosecutor of the ICC. We’ve furnished them with many tranches of information. As of May 28, the commission has shared more than 7,000 open-source items with the office of the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. This information has been verified and geolocated. We link one video piece to another—great effort. We’ve also shared more than 2,000 open-source items with the government of South Africa because that’s the channel to bring it before the ICJ proceedings. We will continue to furnish further information to them as we gather more information.”

Asked about the killing of aid and medical workers, Ms. Pillay replied, “we are stuck with this word limit that the UN fixes, of 10,000 words. I assure you that we care about those issues, we have the statistics and we will definitely address them. 19 hospitals out of service, 17 hospitals partially functional. I’m also concerned about universities because at one time I spent a week in one of those universities at Al-Haq in Palestine and now that’s razed to the ground. So thank you for drawing our attention to that, we are not going to leave it. It’s how to fit this in into our big themes but it definitely falls there, we will be doing that.”

She noted that “these statistics on the number of killed are crucial for us and for the IC to determine the element of ‘widespread and systematic,’ if you want to reach a conclusion that crimes against humanity have been violated. We said that in the Rwanda tribunal.”

She continued, “Statistics then count even though we said in the ICT decision that a single murder could constitute genocide depending on the context and the intention. Is the special intent fulfilled on the evidence? The special intention is to destroy in whole or in part a particular group, that’s genocide. Crimes against humanity, it has to be widespread and systematic. The information, the details we have on the numbers that are killed, to me they appear to fit the definition of widespread and systematic that has been found by international courts so far.”

Asked about the responsibility of third parties for the long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza and the bombing of its people, Pillay said, “Again and again, thousands of people are telling us that had it not been for the help of powerful countries, Israel would not have been able to carry out this perpetual occupation”.

That assertion came at the end of a longer statement: “We have included that in our first report to the general assembly where that was October of 2023, where we identified as the root cause of the conflict that’s part of our mandate, identify what’s the root cause of the mandate. And we just based on all the evidence we gathered and the law that we analyzed, international law, said the root cause is the occupation because it’s been there in perpetuity and it must be, in our view, it’s unlawful. And we also said an opinion should be sought from the International Court of Justice on the legality, lawfulness of the occupation and secondly the responsibility of States who support that endeavor. So I’m happy that our recommendation has been turned into a resolution and now before the ICJ. So we be very much aware that again and again thousands of people are telling us that had it not been for the help of powerful countries, Israel would not have been able to carry out this perpetual occupation as aggressively as it has.”

The commissioners rejected charges of a double standard or of neglecting the Israeli hostages, pointing out that the Israeli government actively obstructed their access to that side of the story and that they did interview Israeli victims who were abroad. Ms. Pillay said, “We could not yet investigate the 124 hostages in Gaza or the condition of the 8 to 10,000 prisoners in Israeli prisons . . . We reached out to medical staff involved with the injured people and bodies after October 7 and wanted to speak with them. However, the Israeli government issued a directive that they were not to speak with us. It’s been a difficult assignment, but we are collecting evidence and hope that we can have further contact with the families of hostages and those that have been released.”

In answer to a question about genocide, Pillay explained that “We have constraints in that our mandate comes from the Human Rights Council and they have not put genocide into our mandate. But we will work closely with our team to follow whether the elements of genocide are present in this conflict.”

Pillay dismissed justifications for the October 7 behavior of Hamas: “The argument from Palestinians is that they’ve suffered so long they have to react, with your back against the wall, you have to react. The commission’s task is different, we’ve been mandated to see who’s to see if there’s any violations of international law. So you cannot commit an unlawful act and injure and kill civilians or take hostages, so we’re very clear that those were violations and they’re committing crimes and they must be prosecuted.” She admitted that Mandela was also branded a terrorist, but she insisted on the judgment of the law: “So one person’s freedom fighter could be another terrorist, but we adhere to the law, you cannot kill civilians, you have to protect them.”

As for Israeli war crimes, she added, “With this occupation based on all the information we’re gathering, it’s pretty stark to us. There is a very clear intention of forcible dislocation of people, just to force them out. And we read those instructions, people from the north of Gaza move south and suddenly they get attacked in the south. We read all those contrary instructions as pointing to an attitude of not caring for the lives, destruction, and dislocation. That’s what I would say there, that this particular conflict has brought out sharply the issue of occupation itself as the root cause.”

Asked about whether Israel’s army is the most moral in the world, Sidoti replied that he was not in a position to make judgments about morality as opposed to the law, saying, “what I do have expertise in and what I do have authority to do is make assessments of criminal conduct. And we’ve done that in relation to the recent events and you can see that in the report. And the only conclusion you can draw is that the Israeli army is one of the most criminal armies in the world.”

Sidoti also weighed in on the difference between understanding why October 7 happened and justifying it. He said there can be no justification for Hamas’s war crimes. Sidoti said, “Chris, I’d like to focus on your phrase “specific act.” International criminal law is based upon accountability for specific acts, so each war crime is a specific act, each crime against humanity has to be widespread or systematic but it is made up of specific acts, and so criminal responsibility is based on specific acts. But trying to say that starting and finishing is based on a specific act is an impossible task. The Secretary-General famously said last October that what had occurred on the 7th of October did not occur in a vacuum, and that’s something that in our report we have tried to understand. This is a war that’s been going on for almost a century, there has never been a time of complete peace during that century, there is only been variations in the level of violence. What we have seen from the 7th of October is an increase in the level of violence, a more intensive period of hostilities, and we have to understand that context to understand the specific acts that have occurred. But understanding is not justification, understanding doesn’t mean that the commission of a war crime or the commission of a crime against humanity is under any circumstances justifiable. But we’ve got to understand why this has occurred if we are interested in stopping it from happening again, and that to me is the key point here, this has happened time and time and time again and this is the worst ever, this is the highest death toll ever in this protracted period of warfare, and there must be accountability for every specific act of criminality. But if we’re going to stop it in the future, we also have to address the question of the context in which it has occurred.”

Sidoti also thought it was possibly significant that an Israeli representative attended the presentation Wednesday morning, and hoped it was a sign that the Israelis might change their minds about freezing out the Commission.

Asked about sharing information with South Africa, Pillay said, “So firstly, we only shared with South Africa material concerning Gaza because that’s the essence of their application. We shared as much as we could but with all the protection issues in place. We have to protect witnesses’ identity, so although we are in a position to share names not only with South Africa but if the IC requests that and they follow all the measures we put in place to protect the identity of witnesses, we could do that. But this far we haven’t,”

Sidoti added, “I’d just add a brief note relating to the different nature of the processes in the ICC and the ICJ. The International Criminal Court deals with individual criminal accountability, and the prosecutor is the investigator, has an investigative wing, the material we provide to the ICC is supplementary to their own investigations. And most of the, well I think at this stage all the material we have provided is open source material, we have absolutely fantastic expertise in digital forensic analysis, and it seems the ICC doesn’t and so it’s that kind of material, these thousands of pieces of evidence that Navi referred to, and that’s essentially what we’re sharing as well with South Africa under a request from South Africa. It’s non identifying information, it doesn’t place people at risk. The International Court of Justice is not concerned with individual criminal accountability, it deals with state responsibility, in this case under the Genocide Convention.”