Search: palestine icc
25 Nov ‘Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key!’: Another Step in the ICC’s Pathway toward Retributivism
...on punishment at the ICC and its underlying assumptions. A dominant retributive account of punishment tends to justify penal severity as the main avenue for justice, thereby neglecting fundamental questions on the limits and implications of long-term imprisonment. This post is divided in two parts: the first addresses the uncertainties in the ICC sentencing process; the second expands the discussion to consider how commitments to penal severity inhibit fresh thinking about justice for mass atrocities. 2. Uncertainties in the ICC sentencing process The ICC sentencing process is characterised by ambiguity and...
06 Aug Complementarity, Catalysts, Compliance Symposium: The Complementarity Test: Reflections on Plain Terms, Expectations and ICL Discourse
States in terms of penal repression. It is only in the tenth paragraph that the ICC is even mentioned – as a complement to this existing accountability framework. The Preamble tells us that that the ICC is not set up to displace the system, but to add to it, to supplement it, to complement it. So important is this theme that it appears in the very first substantive provision of the Statute. So we become used to the idea, at the outset, that the primary goal of the Statute is...19 Feb The ICC Is Not Shying Away from the Georgian Challenge
Even so, the Prosecutor could not lay charges for the crime of aggression with regard to the issue of South Ossetia due to the non-retroactive nature of the Court’s jurisdiction. The ICC´s decision to open an investigation in Georgia is significant because it is the first investigation into a situation outside the African continent. The ICC focus on Africa has led to accusations that the Court has been biased. However, a majority of ICC investigations have been opened at the request of African governments, even if these investigations can be...19 Jul The Most Distressing Paragraph in the Comoros Review Decision
of affairs in Gaza? I would assume that if the ICC prosecutor launched a formal probe against Israeli officials, and it went into a formal trial phase, the Israeli defense may mention this among its arguments. "If they are part of the illegal situation that Comoros or Palestine have referred to the Court, then the Prosecutor should follow the facts and evidence where they lead, and indict those who are responsible. A tu quoque argument would not preclude investigation or prosecution of Israeli officials." It would if the ICC is...15 May Guest Post: The End of the Road for Ngudjolo and the Stacked Odds Against ICC Acquitted
Ngudjolo provided details as to his position in the militia hierarchy. The Dutch authorities then used this information, combined with other reports about the conflict, to invoke Article 1F. For reasons that the ICC has kept confidential, Ngudjolo was also excluded from ICC witness protection. He was therefore stuck in a lose-lose situation: give evidence in his own defence but have nowhere to go if acquitted, or do not give evidence and increase the chance of conviction. Then there was the inaction on the part of the ICC. The dilemma...18 Sep Should the U.S. Accept the ICC’s “Invitation” to Illegally Arrest Bashir?
An ICC chamber, at the request of the ICC Prosecutor, has issued a decision “remind[ing]” U.S. authorities of the two Arrest Warrants issued by the ICC, and “invit[ing]” U.S. authorities to apprehend Bashir and turn him over to the ICC. This is not exactly surprising. Still, it is worth noting that the ICC chamber reviews the legal landscape and it concludes (rightly in my view) that the U.S. has no legal obligation to arrest Bashir if he comes to the U.S. This is true both because the U.S. is a...17 Jul The Pre-Trial Chamber’s Dangerous Comoros Review Decision
...are no procedures in place that require its judicial organs to advise the Prosecutor when one of the ICC's member states refers to an alleged violation of the Rome Statute in a formal written submission, as Jordan did in 2003. The situation in Palestine wasn't dragged-in over the transom, it walked right in the front door of the ICC in 2009 when the government of Palestine accepted the Court's jurisdiction. It isn't the fault of Comoros or anyone else that the Prosecutors failed to properly address the situation. At the...
09 Aug Symposium on Unbroken Bond: Tracing the Ties Between African and Palestinian Anti-Colonial Struggles – When Nelson Mandela was (Considered) a Terrorist and the “Natural Alliance” between South Africa and Palestine
argued that while Zionists insist on Israel’s historic right to Palestine, it is in fact only Europe’s imperial power that made Israel’s creation possible. Starting with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British promoted the settlement of European Jews in Palestine similar to the encouragement provided by European colonial states for the migration of settlers to Africa. In this scenario, South Africa followed a tortuous route to independence for its Black majority. South African political conditions resembled those in occupied Palestine today and required outside intervention to realise the political...
15 Nov Ten Recommendations to Prosecutor Karim Khan to Improve his Relationship with Civil Society during Preliminary Examinations: Perspectives from the Situation Countries
While the OTP operates under the strict confidentiality terms reflected in the Rome Statute, there is little to no information available on the ICC website describing the OTP’s confidentiality policy. This has left many civil society groups with the fear that their information may be shared with governments, particularly in countries hostile to the ICC, where even the most basic information is sensitive—for instance in Myanmar, Palestine/Israel, or Venezuela. As a result, some civil society groups have decided against transmitting valuable information to the ICC. Recommendation 4: The OTP should...
04 Jan Implications for the ICC on the Resumption of Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation and the Relevance of the Oslo Accords in Current ICC Litigation
[Dov Jacobs, Joshua Kern and Daniel Reisner appear as amici curiae on behalf of the IJL in the ongoing proceedings before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC in the Situation in Palestine. The IJL Brief before PTC I is available here. The Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision remains sub iudice.] On 19 November 2020, it was reported that the Palestinian Authority will resume civil and security cooperation with Israel. Hussein al-Sheikh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, wrote on Twitter “that the bilateral agreements signed [with Israel], which are based on...