"The US and its favourite client state give no sign of being willing to submit to international law. Like Samson, they would prefer to bring the house down than respect the long-established rules of war.
The initial victims are the people of Gaza. But in a world without laws, where might alone makes right, all of us will ultimately be the losers"
"Israeli campaign against ICC may be ‘crimes against justice’"
"International lawyers believe conduct of Israeli intelligence service should be investigated by prosecutor in The Hague"
“It is quite clear that these are matters that fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC, in particular under article 70 of the statute. Any person who has attempted to obstruct the independent investigations of the prosecutor must face the consequences"
Swedish minister on #Kyiv striking Russian soil with Western arms: ‘Ukraine has right to defend itself’
“Ukraine has the right to defend itself through #military actions aimed at the enemy’s territory as long as the military actions comply with the laws of war"
#Israel#Palestine#Hamas#Gaza#Genocide#HumanRights#InternationalLaw: "As early as October 9 top Israeli officials declared that they intended to block the delivery of food, water, and electricity, which is essential for purifying water and cooking. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s words have become infamous: (...) The statement conveyed the view that has seemed to guide Israel’s approach throughout the conflict: that Gazans are collectively complicit for Hamas’s crimes on October 7.
Since then Israel has restricted the number of vehicles allowed to enter Gaza, reduced the number of entry points, and conducted time-consuming and onerous inspections; destroyed farms and greenhouses; limited the delivery of fuel needed for the transport of food and water within the enclave; killed more than two hundred Palestinian aid workers, many of them employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the principal aid provider in the blockaded territory before October 7; and persuaded many donors, including the United States, to stop funding UNRWA by claiming that a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack or have other connections to Hamas. (An investigation by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, released on April 22, concluded that Israel had provided no evidence to support its allegations and that UNRWA is “irreplaceable and indispensable.”) The air strikes on April 1 that destroyed all three vehicles in a World Central Kitchen convoy, killing six international aid workers and a Palestinian driver and translator, seemed a continuation of these policies. Israel’s explanation that this was the result of a “misidentification” has aroused skepticism. As a result, other humanitarian groups may be deterred from providing aid.
The cumulative effect of these measures is that many Palestinians—especially young children—are starving."
#Israel#MOSSAD#ICC#HumanRights#InternationalLaw#Palestine#WarCrimes: "The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared."
#InternationalLaw#Humanism#Liberalism: "It is less a question of Western or Eastern, but rather liberal humanism as such that has died. When hearts and minds quietly change below the surface of an otherwise resilient and powerful liberal order, then imaginations and preparations toward a viable alternative have inevitably begun, even if only unconsciously.
In many ways, this moment echoes the lamentations of anti-colonial intellectuals, activists, and statesmen around the Global North’s betrayal of liberal humanism with respect to national self-determination in the twentieth century. If the horrifying images from the Vietnam War and subsequent anti-war movements constituted a watershed moment across the world, then the ongoing carnage across Palestine and global protests against it may constitute yet another such moment. It could have transformative implications for the global majority’s perception of the Global North’s values and principles, and build momentum for a new, multipolar, and anarchic world that nobody is prepared for.
At stake now is not only Ukraine’s and Palestine’s national survival, but the survival of international law and anything that is left of basic human decency. The violence and brutality of the last two years must prompt all of us — whether in the Global South or North, East or West — to enter into an honest and thorough introspection about the kind of world that we want to live in. What kind of geopolitics, notions of sovereignty, human rights, and legality are needed to overcome today’s challenges? Otherwise, we will slip ever closer towards the abyss of a more violent, nihilistic, and soulless world, in which the weak are crushed in the interests of the powerful few."
#InternationalLaw: "It’s just a cold, hard fact that “international law” is never enforced against powerful nations or their protected allies, because there’d be no way for the international community to enforce those laws upon them without waging a massive world war involving nuclear-armed states. The US notoriously put in place its “Hague Invasion Act” between its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure that it can use military force to free any military personnel of the US or its allies (this would include Israel) who wind up detained by the ICC. There is currently no force in the world that would be both willing and able to stop the US war machine from doing such a thing."
Given the developments this week it has become clear that:
The International Criminal Court,
The International Court of Justice,
Ireland,
Spain,
and Norway…
…are all Hamas.
Yes, there is no other explanation and Israel is by no means an apartheid state engaged in genocide (how could you even think such a thing, you raging antisemite, you?!)
"The #Nakba is a structure, not an event. Its authors openly admit its aims" explains Dr. #ArdiImseis, professor of #InternationalLaw, Queen's University, Canada
The Palestinian genocide has exposed so many things. You may not care about it, but the issues arising from it in : #surveillance , #corruption, #lobbying, #internationallaw, #racism, etc. etc. will come to affect you— one way or another.
The lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has announced that he is seeking arrest warrants for Benjamin #Netanyahu and Yahya #Sinwar, along with senior figures of their respective regimes, for the commission of #WarCrimes and #CrimesAgainstHumanity.
Amidst the predictable performative outrage from the US political elite, one fact is barely reported upon: the US is amongst a handful of nations that does not recognise the #ICC, and has on its books a 2002 law (colloquially dubbed 'the Hague Invasion Act') threatening war upon the #Netherlands (!) should any US citizen (or the citizen of any US ally) be brought for trial before the ICC.
Given the fact that the #US routinely fails to follow its own laws, let alone #InternationalLaw, when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the chances of an actual US invasion of the European lowlands is scant. Nonetheless, the rogue nature of #USexceptionalism is the always the elephant in the room when it comes to all discussions of accountability for the most egregious crimes of #geopolitics.
"International law tends to be poorly understood, even among lawyers. But it retains an aura among laymen which frequently leads to its invocation as a form of higher law, though often in a severely mangled form. Recent events such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made the problem even more acute, so that it may be useful to provide here a short primer of some of its salient features."
"“What is happening here is so off-the-charts egregious that there is no other reading of the law: We have to cease weapons transfers to Israel.”
The letter also calls on Garland to investigate the thousands of U.S. citizens currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces for potential war crimes."
The #Biden admin has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that #Israel’s military campaign in #Gaza has violated #InternationalLaw, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of #military aid, #State Dept told #Congress Fri.
Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed (www.theguardian.com)
Exclusive: Investigation reveals how intelligence agencies tried to derail war crimes prosecution, with Netanyahu ‘obsessed’ with intercepts