International court
denies Palestinian call for inquiry
BYLINE: MARLISE SIMONS , April
5, 2012 Thursday, IHT
The International
Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has turned down a longstanding request by the
Palestinian Authority to investigate accusations of Israeli war crimes
during the three-week war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that began
in late 2008.
ICC has no jurisdiction
over the Palestinian territories for lack of statehood
In a statement issued
by his office on Tuesday, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, did not address
the issue of whether crimes may have occurred, saying only that his office had no jurisdiction over the Palestinian
territories until the United Nations, or the nations that have joined
the court - 121 at present - recognized them as a state. A bid by the
Palestinians to join the United Nations appears to have stalled, and Mr.
Moreno-Ocampo's nine-year term ends this summer.
In early 2009, when
the Palestinian Authority first requested the prosecutor's intervention, Mr.
Moreno-Ocampo said he lacked any legal basis to examine the case, since neither
Israelis nor Palestinians had recognized the court.
The efforts made by the
Palestinian Authority
But the Palestinian
Authority quickly presented a written commitment unilaterally recognizing the
court's jurisdiction for ''acts committed on the territory of Palestine''
dating from 2002. The prosecutor's office also said that it had been told by
the authority ''that Palestine has been recognized as a state in bilateral
relations by more than 130 governments and by certain international
organizations.'' Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said then that he would seek the
broadest possible range of opinions on whether it was possible to deal with the
Palestinian request.
A lawyer in the
prosecutor's office, which had received nearly 400 requests to look into
allegations of war crimes during the fighting between Israel and Hamas
militants, said it ''did not seem like a case'' in which the question of
jurisdiction was obvious.
Israel position
''It took more than a
year for Israel to even talk about the issue with the prosecution,'' said a lawyer familiar
with the case. ''Israel did not want
to be seen as contributing anything, or as having anything to do with
the court. Eventually it sent answers via proxies.''
The Arab League
The Arab League, which
had been highly critical of the court since it issued an arrest warrant for
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, was eager to provide its views in
this case. ''The Arab League had been distant, and the fact that they
became fully engaged was very interesting,'' the lawyer said.
Some Western
governments and other critics of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have also
said that Hamas violated the rules of war with its attacks on Israeli civilians
during the war, which lasted until early 2009.
Some groups still
express hope that a prospective Palestinian state can take its case to the
court, because it has found few places to seek justice.
Political rather than
legal – (DO- I don’t understand.. unless
UNSC referral, it would be a quite stretch, as Palestinian Authority is
arguably not state, state party to the Rome)
The many rounds of
consultations that preceded the statement Tuesday have revealed more about
the political currents that can swirl around the court than about
how laws of war may be applied. But
the statement did seem to answer one pending question: Palestinian officials
cannot hope to gain implicit recognition of statehood through the court.
