The long road towards universal justice that began in the Nuremberg trials and that is now embodied by the International Criminal Court (ICC), established between conflicting feelings of idealism and open hostility of the great military powers 22 years ago in The Hague, faces the hour of truth with the request of his Prosecutor’s Office to issue arrest warrants against the Prime Minister of Israel, Beniamin Netanyahu, his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and the leadership of the terrorist organization Hamas.
The announcement by the prosecutor, Karim Khan, who has been investigating the situation in Gaza since 2021 at the request of Palestine, a signatory state of the Rome Statute, has provoked strong reactions and tense detractors and allies of the ICC alike, especially the Europeans. . Despite being the greatest defenders of their complicated mission and independence, there is no more polarizing conflict than the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and inevitably its internal fractures have emerged.
Despite the enthusiasm with which Washington received the arrest warrant issued last year by The Hague against Russian President Vladimir Putin, it could not be expected to support the Prosecutor’s Office’s decision to accuse the Israeli and Hamas leadership of crimes of war and against humanity. Contrary to the prosecutor’s conclusions, supported by a panel of international experts, the White House believes that the facts it intends to judge are outside the court’s jurisdiction. Republicans threaten sanctions like those they adopted in Donald Trump’s time against senior officials in The Hague for investigating their troops in Afghanistan.
London’s reaction has also been very critical. “This action does nothing to help achieve a pause in the fighting, remove hostages or receive humanitarian aid and move towards the sustainable ceasefire we want to see,” said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In the EU, the reactions reflected the divergent views on the Gaza war, which have already been evident in recent months in the votes at the United Nations.
In a late statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France reiterated that it “supports the ICC, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations” without commenting on the Prosecutor’s request itself, although it underlined the multiple warnings about “the imperative ” to respect international humanitarian law and the “unacceptable” deaths of civilians in Gaza. The Spanish Government, for its part, reiterated its commitment “to the independence and impartiality” of the court and stressed that “its crucial work must be carried out freely and without interference.” Belgium went further by supporting the prosecutor’s request as “an important step” and reiterating that they will support the work of international justice so that “those responsible for all crimes are held accountable.”
Other EU countries reacted very differently. “It is absurd that the prosecutor even conceives this parallelism” between the Government of Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, protested the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke in the same vein, saying he was not “a fan” of Netanyahu but considered it “unacceptable” to treat them as equals. From Prague, the Czech leader, Petr Fiala, described The Hague’s approach as “devastating and absolutely unacceptable”, a position similar to that of the Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, who described the approach as “incomprehensible” although he said he “totally respect” ” the independence of the court.
The German Foreign Ministry, for its part, also criticized the “inaccurate impression” of “equivalence” conveyed by the Prosecutor’s request, but did not fail to praise “the fundamental achievement for the international community” that the ICC represents and reiterated that “respects their independence and procedures.” The Hungarian Government stated that it found the prosecutor’s decision “absurd and shameful.” No member state suggested that it would ignore eventual decisions from The Hague, but in his statement, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, recalled the obligation of “all countries that have ratified the ICC statutes” to apply their decisions.
Khan’s request now rests on the table of the three judges that make up the pretrial chamber, which will probably rule on it before the summer recess. It remains to be seen what degree of cooperation Israel, a non-signatory country of the Rome Statute, provides to The Hague. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has revealed that Netanyahu’s government was willing to collaborate and was organizing a visit by Khan to the country next week. His team was due to arrive on Monday to prepare the mission, but the Israeli Government was informed that they were not going to fly “almost at the same time” that Khan announced the charges on television, criticized Blinken, who questioned “the legitimacy and credibility of the investigation”.
