Search: palestine icc
03 May Forget the Security Council: The General Assembly Can Admit Palestine
the United States supports Palestine statehood only “in the context of a comprehensive peace agreement.” Israel has said it will not negotiate a peace agreement that would involve its acceptance of Palestine statehood. From the Security Council’s report on the April 18 Palestine vote, it will be apparent to the General Assembly that the US reasoning that prevented a positive recommendation is well outside an international consensus. Twelve states supported the Palestine application. The ground has been laid for the General Assembly to act. In the wake of the Security...15 Aug The Waters Were Already Muddy: A Rebuttal to Victor Kattan
Steven Kay QC is Head of Chambers at 9 Bedford Row. Joshua Kern is a barrister at 9 Bedford Row). On 3 July 2019, we submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) (summarised here) which argued that Palestine’s objective legal status as a non-State entity, as well as Palestine’s indeterminate sovereign territorial claim, operate as barriers to the exercise of ICC jurisdiction in potential cases. On 9 August, Victor Kattan responded on these pages (here and here) by suggesting that our communication constitutes...
29 Jul Symposium on Unbroken Bond: Tracing the Ties Between African and Palestinian Anti-Colonial Struggles – Race as a Tool of Oppression: Settler Colonialism in Africa and Palestine Through the Lens of Black Radical Thought
the context of Palestine, this discourse portrays Palestinians as backward, uncivilised, and therefore undeserving of self-determination. The Israeli state’s policies and land confiscation, settlement construction and restriction of Palestinian movement are often justified through a discourse of security and civilisation that is deeply rooted in racial othering. As Davis points out, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is one of the most blatant cases of state commitment to apartheid and racism. The Zionist project in Palestine has employed Orientalist discourse and intersectional oppression in several key ways. Zionist narratives often portray...
24 May An Overview of the Principle of Complementarity
12 Republican senators sent to the Prosecutor, threatening to sanction him, other ICC employees, and their families if he proceeded to apply for arrest warrants: The ICC is also prohibited by its charter from proceeding in any case unless the relevant government is unwilling or unable to police themselves. You yourself have said that “Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.” By issuing warrants, you would be calling into question the legitimacy of Israel’s laws, legal system, and...23 Apr Guest Post: The ICC Changes Its Mind on the Immunity from Arrest of President Al Bashir, But It Is Wrong Again
members, which detain the veto, are not parties to the ICC Statute, to me, it was simply preposterous to confer a right of referral of the ICC to the SC. Clearly, this is a grave breach of the principle of independence of justice. Sometimes, I wonder whether the ICC is not a “baby” of the SC? (2) Despite this “congenital malformation”, one could expected that ICC judges do their best to escape from the clutches of the SC, by interpreting the Statute in a way which makes them more independent....20 Aug Emerging Voices: Victim Participation in ICC and ECCC’s Proceedings
(…). However, neither the Rome Statute nor the ICC Rules of procedure and Evidence determine the modalities of victim participation. It is left to the judges to set such rules (ICC Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Rule 89.1). Thus, at the ICC, victim participation depends on each Chamber and varies in each case. For example, in the Katanga and Ngudjolo Chui case, the Trial Chamber II decided that the victims’ legal representatives « must be able to consult all of the public and confidential decisions and documents in the record...19 Apr ICC Watch: More Details on ICC-Uganda Understanding
This report gives a bit more detail to the non-agreement agreement between the ICC Prosecutor and the Ugandan leaders who visited the Hague last week. The statements by the ICC Prosecutor shows the limits of his discretion under the ICC Statute and, perhaps, why the ICC will always be a potential obstacle to settlement of an ongoing conflict. The ICC Prosecutor As soon as there is a solution to end the violence and if the prosecution is not serving the interest of justice, then my duty is to stop investigation...
31 Mar Justice in Extreme Cases Symposium: An Invitation to Think about the Way We Think in International Criminal Justice
...of the incriminating evidence (p. 53). Indeed, there are indications of this trend in ICC jurisprudence, which support Robinson’s proposition. One example is the narrow construction of the mental element of criminal liability, or mens rea, in ICC judgments. Article 30(2)(b) of the Rome Statute defines as an intentional conduct one in which the perpetrator has been ‘aware’ that the crime ‘will occur in the ordinary course of events’. In practice, many ICC pre-trial, trial and appeals chambers have interpreted these words in a very restrictive sense – to require...
16 Sep Prosecuting Denial of Right of Return of Georgian IDPs under the Rome Statute
...on the ground of “destination requirement”: while deportation involves displacement across national borders, a forcible transfer is committed within the national borders (Rohingya Decision, para. 57). The Possibility to Prosecute Denial of Right of Return of Georgian IDPs by the ICC On 27 January 2016, ICC authorized the Prosecutor to open proprio motu investigation in the Situation in Georgia in relation to alleged CaH and war crimes committed in and around Tskhinvali Region in the context of Russian-Georgian international armed conflict of 2008. One of the alleged crimes on which the ICC’s...
29 May Affective Justice Symposium: An Anthropology of International Criminal Justice Across Multiple Scales–A Response to Commentaries
...are interpreted differently by various actors. I continue to oppose narrow technocratic analyses of international law in relation to these Africa-ICC debates precisely because this approach inherently erases both voices of resistance (regardless of the actors) and, more seriously, alternate possibilities for innovation. Affective Justice explains that the ICC, ICTY, and ICTR have statutory provisions that reject head-of-state immunity. However, in domestic courts, as opposed to international ones, personal immunity remains firmly established as a matter of international law. The larger debate in ICC-Africa circuits is around how functional immunity...