Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 17
Failure to launch an investigation into genocide in Gaza and issue arrest warrants can have a devastating impact on the International Criminal Court.
Over the past few months, the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the leadership of Prosecutor Karim Khan has come under heavy criticism for not taking any concrete steps to prosecute the crime of genocide in Gaza.
Last month, our organisation, Law for Palestine, made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, characterising the crime of genocide committed by Israeli leaders against the Palestinian people. The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases.
If the ICC fails to act once again, it risks undermining its own authority as an institution of international justice and the international legal regime as a whole.
The ICC is obliged to take immediate action on Gaza given the wealth of evidence supporting the accusations of genocide against Israel.
International Media point to the numerous statements, including by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Issac Herzog, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and members of the Knesset, as well as members of the public, where the intention to commit genocide is laid bare.
While the statements form a substantial part of the intent component of the crime of genocide, the submission goes beyond and highlights the various actions and official policies that additionally prove intent. These include a pattern of targeting of medical facilities, deliberate destruction of agricultural land and water systems, and the obstruction of aid in order to cause starvation.
They contend that Israel’s practice of apartheid creates an environment conducive to committing the crime of genocide, just like in the cases of Nazi Germany and Rwanda, and that the Israeli laws enacted to protect its leaders from prosecution also point to the intent to commit genocide.
ICC cannot ignore its own genocide rulings
Beyond the availability of extensive and comprehensive evidence, the ICC should be compelled to act also because of previous precedents it has set.
Since its inception, the ICC has identified the existence of a reasonable basis for investigating cases of genocide, including ones with far lesser devastation to civilian lives and infrastructure than currently observed in Gaza.
The spirit to investigate genocide was apparent in the ICC’s approach to the situation in Ukraine as well, despite facing greater challenges in establishing both the intent and the acts of genocide by Russia.
Needless to say, the evidence on Israeli genocidal intent and its connection with ideology are extremely abundant and have been documented extensively, for decades. At the outset, the Zionist movement recognised itself as a settler colonial entity and viewed the elimination of the Indigenous population of Palestine as a necessity. Over the last few months, this link between genocidal intent and ideology has been repeated by several Israeli leaders in reference to the violence unleashed on Gaza.
Additionally, the serious risk of genocide or the plausibility of its commission by Israel, if not full perpetration, has been recognised by top official bodies and experts within the UN system. Besides the ICJ provisional measures and additional provisional measures, which clearly stated that there is a plausible case for genocide, a number of statements and warnings have been voiced out by UN special rapporteurs and working groups, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), and UN staff members.
The ICC is losing legitimacy
The case for genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza is as compelling as any previously judicially successful case – if not more. Failure to announce an investigation into the crime of genocide will cause severe and long-lasting damage to the already seriously challenged image and legitimacy of the court.
The question of Palestine is at the heart of the post-World War II international legal order and cannot be ignored. Amid the continuous erosion of the ICC’s legitimacy, the court and its prosecutor must urgently investigate the genocide unfolding in Palestine and issue arrest warrants against the Israeli war cabinet, if they are to restore the faith of the global majority in this institution of global justice.
