Search: palestine icc
12 Apr The Apartheid Reports: A Paradigm Shift on Israel/Palestine (Part I)
as a war crime but as a crime against humanity, is under the jurisdiction of the court under the Rome Statute, and therefore the current investigation can examine whether the crime of apartheid was committed. The ICC is a principal international arena for substantiating findings on human rights violations, and the international human rights organizations’ reports address the ICC prosecutor directly, requesting an investigation into the crime of apartheid. If the prosecutor accepts, this will be the first time that the crime of apartheid will be examined by the ICC....
28 Jul What Will Gaza Become After Genocide? Law and the Regime of Managed Suffering (Part 2)
...a duty to help colonised peoples repel colonial aggression. Ironically, it is the very clarity of the law that poses a conundrum for the West. Palestine is under attack not because the law is ambiguous, but because Western states object to its application in this instance. They may condemn Israeli aggression, occasionally, but they obstruct the law’s implementation in Palestine consistently, preferring that Palestinian liberation come via negotiations with their oppressor rather than via legality. The ongoing pantomime playing out in Europe—‘should we, Europe!, join the 140 other UN member-states...
24 Jul What Will Gaza Become After Genocide? Using the Counterfactual Method to Evaluate Three Post-Genocidal Futures (Part 1)
...pontification is normalisation of a surmountable process. The question for us the insurgent scholars, is not how to imagine a liberated Palestine, but how to liberate Palestine. That’s the dilemma. It’s true legal scholars cannot imagine a free Palestine but you already clearly point that out. We need to go beyond that. What do you think? The concern is valid. Even if unintended, imagining the ‘day after’, as I do, can displace focus from an ongoing genocide, making liberation appear as aesthetic or talking point, a violent and vulgar move since...
23 Jun Symposium on the Global Sumud Flotilla: Ecocide as Genocide – The curious disappearance of the Palestinian olive tree
context, the ICC policy reminds that “the deliberate withholding or taking away of the basic necessities of life over an extended period of time” can meet the threshold for a genocidal act. (para. 23) In relation to Darfur, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor alleged that Omar Al-Bashir committed genocide under article 6(c) by destroying the targeted groups’ “food, wells and water pumping machines, shelter, crops and livestock” and by usurping their land. (ICC Policy para. 24) This case has important overlaps with the systematic targeting of olive trees in...14 Sep Guest Post: Update on Israel/Palestine and the Revival of International Prize Law
...legislation, which granted prize jurisdiction to courts in Mandatory Palestine (the British Naval Prize Act of 1864 and the British Prize Act of 1939). As I noted back in January, prize powers have never been exercised by Israel before. Moreover, prize proceedings are extremely rare globally. Indeed, since customary prize law allows belligerents to capture and condemn private vessels – both “enemy” and, in some cases, “neutral” – prize law seems at odds with contemporary human rights norms protecting private property. In this context, my January post raised several questions...
22 Nov The PTC Decisions on Israel’s Legal Challenges to the Arrest Warrants
Pre-Trial Chamber pursuant to Art. 19 to dismiss the applications for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the ground that the Court lacks jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine by Israeli nationals. Israel’s argument — which echoed the one offered by a number of states, organisations, and individuals during the July amicus process — consisted of three interrelated claims: (1) Palestine is not a sovereign state, so the ICC cannot exercise territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory; (2) any exercise of jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian...
08 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: Massacring Civilians – Genocide as International Legal Conundrum
experience life under the Zionist settler-colonial state as an incremental, endless massacre, they experience martyrdom as a form of liberation (rather than death). Zionist settler- and neo-colonialism engages in perpetual warfare against Palestinians. The keys to decolonizing contemporary international law are in the hands of the children in Palestine and Lebanon who are experiencing these ferocious and sadistic massacres. Merely punishing the perpetrators of civilian massacres will not assuage them. Their witnessing makes obvious what we will witness in the future: the children of Palestine and Lebanon—who witness up close...
28 Aug Can Erga Omnes Partes Obligations Satisfy the ‘Interest Of A Legal Nature’ Requirement of Article 62 ICJ Statute?
...main proceedings. Territorial and Maritime Dispute Judgment on Costa Rica’s Application for Permission to Intervene at para 37 It is therefore not necessary for a State which intervenes as a non-party, as Palestine and Poland are, ‘to establish that one of its rights may be affected; it is sufficient for that State to establish that its interest of a legal nature may be affected’ (Territorial and Maritime Dispute Judgment at para 26). Not only does Palestine have an interest as afforded to every State party of the Genocide Convention, but...
20 Jan “From the Land of Witches and Wolves”: A Conversation with Francesca Albanese
...a belief in Jewish supremacy and indigenous disposability. This is the genocidal nature of settler-colonialism, which demands the erasure of the indigenous population to make way for settler futures. International law as practised in Palestine remains wedded to its predatory penchant. In other words, Palestinian suffering and Palestinian hope are both nurtured by international law, in equal measure. Echoing Rajagopal, Albanese recognises that one of the most powerful tools at her—and our—disposal is the act of naming. She insists on naming the situation in Palestine as apartheid, occupation, and genocide....
07 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: Palestine at the ICJ – International Law v The “Rules Based Order”
[George Bisharat is an Emeritus Professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East for both academic and general audiences. He is currently leading an international comparative research project examining the role of private violence in settler colonial societies.] Three cases related to Palestine have been before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the last two years. The first of these cases involved the United Nations General Assembly’s 2022 request for an advisory...