Chief-in-Editor Prof. Badria A. Al-Awadi
In a remarkable development, the International Criminal Court, on February 5, 2021, decided by a majority of its judges that its regional jurisdiction in Palestine includes the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, which paves the way for criminal investigations of war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation, including targeting civilians in successive wars, settlements, displacing Palestinians, confiscating their lands, and so on.
In its decision, the Court affirmed that the State of Palestine acceded in 2015 to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which was established in 2002, and that the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza are occupied Palestinian territories. The Court considered that the decision “is not determining whether Palestine fulfilled the requirements of statehood under public international law, or adjudicating a border dispute, or prejudging the question of any future borders,” but rather “to solely determine the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction for the purposes of the Rome Statute” based on the jurisdictional rules stipulated in the Court’s founding documents.
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had requested the court’s legal opinion on its jurisdiction in the territories occupied by Israel, after declaring her desire to open a full investigation against Israel in December 2020 after a preliminary investigation into the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces in their aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2014, in response to a Palestinian request, and in response to pressures from large sectors of world public opinion, following the brutal crimes of the Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and even inside the occupied territories in 1948.
These crimes include – as is well known – f massacres, displacement, land-grabbing, bombing and killing of children and women, confiscation and destruction of property, building settlements and others. They are certainly crimes against humanity, and amount to what the Nazis and the fascists committed in Germany and Italy, respectively. These crimes require serious action to stop them and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Undoubtedly, this decision is an important development in the efforts of Palestinians and supporters of human rights and justice to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Palestine, because it is issued for the first time by an international judicial body whose statute states that its jurisdiction includes: “crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.” These include: murder; extermination; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; enforced disappearance of persons; the crime of apartheid; persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international…”
The court’s jurisdiction also includes war crimes and aggression, which applies to the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the defenseless Palestinian people.
Although Israel is not a member of the statute of the International Criminal Court, the Israeli occupation rose up in the face of the court’s decision to extend its territorial jurisdiction to the occupied Palestinian territories. Its government announced its non-recognition of the decision, describing the court as a “political body” and that its “decision is anti-Semitic.” Its army also announced that it would “protect its [accused] soldiers and officers” from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
This position was supported by the United States of America, which denounced and condemned the decision, and imposed sanctions on the members of the International Criminal Court itself, which is an encouragement for this usurping and occupying entity to continue to commit crimes against humanity and war crimes against the defenseless Palestinian people. This position represents supporting the policy of impunity for criminals, and a disregard for the international criminal justice, established upon the agreement of more than 100 countries in a civilized effort to confront international crimes and acts of war and aggression.
Undoubtedly, this reaction of the Israeli occupation and its supporters confirms the fear of international criminal prosecution, whether within the framework of the International Criminal Court and regional jurisdiction, or within the framework of international courts and universal jurisdiction as is the case in some countries. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the Palestinians and their supporters who advocate international justice, truth and equality to continue to sue perpetrators of war crimes and their supporters in all international and national courts, because the crimes of the occupation do not have a statute of limitations, and their perpetrators must be held accountable.
