The Australian government has attempted to block an ICC investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli forces by arguing Palestine is “not a state”.
Australia was lobbied to argue against the probe by Israel, which is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), The Guardian reported.
Late last year, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced, after a five-year preliminary investigation, that there were reasonable grounds to believe war crimes had been committed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
International Complicity Aids US-Israel Efforts against the #ICC – https://t.co/HExHdhHoSm #Palestine pic.twitter.com/5x67sV3WC7
— al whit (@soitiz) March 15, 2020
Bensouda seeks to launch a formal investigation into alleged war crimes in Palestine. Before doing so, the prosecutor had asked the Hague-based court’s pre-trial chamber to confirm whether the ICC has jurisdiction over alleged offenses committed there.
Palestine has been a party to the ICC since 2015, but the Australian government has argued that the Palestinian Authority is not a state and thus cannot be a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court to investigate the crimes of genocide, aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Australia’s position is clear: Australia does not recognize the ‘State of Palestine’,” Australia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Matthew Neuhaus, said in the country’s submission.
The United Nations secretary general’s acceptance of Palestine’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute was an “administrative act” that did not make it a state, Neuhaus wrote.
ICC Prosecutor Delivers a Blow to Israel’s Lobbying Efforts, Declares Jurisdiction over State of Palestine https://t.co/k8KMuFaVU3 via @PalestineChron
— Gudrun Assmann (@AssmannGudrun) May 4, 2020
Israel “encouraged” Australia to make submissions to the court regarding its proposed probe into alleged war crimes, the chief legal officer with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in Senate estimates.
In February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu included Australia in a list of countries that had responded to Israeli lobbying against the ICC probe.
“I would like to commend Germany, Australia, Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Uganda, which have joined the US in a steadfast stand alongside Israel,” he told the cabinet.
Israel, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, considers the court a “political instrument in the war against Israel”. Netanyahu has also described the probe as “anti-Semitic”.
“Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has, once and for…” https://t.co/MmpSexRsPG via @middleeastmnt
— Ratiba "Tibou" Abdessemed (@Tibou12379939) May 10, 2020
Germany, Canada, Hungary, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Uganda, and Austria have also backed the position that the Hague-based court does not hold jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian territories.
On April 30, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reiterated that Palestine is a state, and therefore the International Criminal Court (ICC) has legal jurisdiction to rule on alleged war crimes committed there.
The statement was a firm response to intense lobbying efforts by Israel and its supporters, especially Germany, to delegitimize the proceeding altogether.
However, the ball is now in the court of the ICC pre-trial chamber, which is expected to respond to concerns over the jurisdiction question in the coming weeks.
(Palestine Chronicle, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Social Media)
