On the 26th anniversary of the adoption of the 1998 Rome Statute, which is commemorated every year as International Justice Day, the fight against impunity has never been as crucial as today. The adoption of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), 26 years ago represented a beacon of hope for many victims of the most serious international crimes. Today, however, this hope seems to diminish as the international criminal justice system hangs in the balance as states continue to disregard their international responsibilities and threaten the proper functioning of the ICC.
This year, Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan), and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) commemorate International Justice Day amid the live-streamed genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. As of 15 July 2024, the Gaza Ministry of Health has provided a conservative death toll of 38,664 Palestinians killed and 89,097 injured. Taking into account a broader range of factors such as unrecorded preventable deaths from disease, a report in The Lancet estimated that the current death toll from Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip may even amount to 186,000, nearly eight percent of Gaza's total population. Gaza has been turned into the world's largest graveyard for children, and in turn, a graveyard for the very principles of international law.
Palestinian interest in the ICC and support of its creation dates back to the 1998 United Nations (UN) Diplomatic Conference in Rome, driven by the Palestinian people’s aspiration for justice and accountability while struggling to end Israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid and illegal military occupation, as well as the decades-long prevailing impunity for Israeli perpetrators. The Palestinian people’s struggle is guided by human rights and international law to achieve their inalienable rights, especially their collective right to self-determination and the right of return.
As the UN Secretary-General rightly pointed out, the current situation in Gaza “did not happen in a vacuum”. Indeed, the ongoing genocide is occurring against the backdrop of 76 years of Zionist settler colonialism and apartheid imposed on the Palestinian people as a whole; 57 years of illegal military occupation; and 17 years of suffocating closure and blockade on Gaza, whereby 2.3 million Palestinians—half of whom are children—are forced to live in a densely populated area of around 365 km² described as an “open-air prison” and a “bantustan”. Over 70 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza are refugees who were displaced and dispossessed by Zionist militias and the Israeli military from their ancestral homes and land during the Nakba between 1947 and 1949.
Despite the pain, loss, agony and feeling of betrayal from the world which turned its back on the Palestinian victims for decades, especially in Gaza, we renew our shared commitment and continue our support of all accountability efforts contributing to the global fight against impunity.
We mark this day amid Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and its total disregard for three provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which had already determined the plausibility of Israel carrying out genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ had ordered Israel, on three different occasions, to take all measures within its power to stop with immediate effect all genocidal acts in Gaza; to ensure the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid, including through land crossings, and to immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate. Israel has blatantly ignored the provisional measures orders issued by the ICJ, amid the international community’s failure to ensure compliance.
As we previously outlined on several occasions, the work of our organisations on the ground has been seriously compromised. Our staff remain displaced from their homes, deprived of the basic necessities of life, and unable to conduct the extensive fieldwork that we had previously communicated to the Court, as it continues to be too dangerous to move safely around the Gaza Strip. Two of our colleagues at PCHR, Nour Abo Nour and Dana Yaghi, have been killed along with their families by Israeli airstrikes on Deir Al-Balah and Rafah. Palestinians in Gaza, including journalists and paramedics, are also sniped at and targeted. Some of our staff in Gaza have been detained, interrogated, threatened and subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment by the Israeli military. Over the past nine months, airstrikes and tank shells have completely destroyed the three PCHR offices in Gaza, Jabaliya, and Khan Younis. The premises and all their contents no longer exist. The building housing Al Mezan’s office in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp was also destroyed. Al-Haq, Al Mezan and PCHR staff continue to be displaced with their families, many of them multiple times.
Palestinian human rights organisations have supported the ICC’s work during both the preliminary examination and the investigation stages. Notably, Israel systematically denies international organisations and investigative bodies access to the occupied Palestinian territory, including the UN Special Rapporteurs and successive UN Commissions of Inquiry. As a result, one of the only ways that investigative bodies, including the ICC, have access to the victims and communities in Palestine is through Palestinian human rights organisations, who have in turn paid a heavy price for supporting the work of the ICC. In 2016 staff at Al-Haq and Al Mezan were subjected to death threats and harassment for cooperating with the ICC. On 19 October 2021, following the opening of an investigation into the Situation in Palestine, Israel criminalised six Palestinian organisations, including Al-Haq, under Israel’s domestic Counter-Terrorism Law, 2016. The Israeli army raided, ransacked and damaged properties, closing the offices for “security reasons”. A recent Guardian investigation confirmed that Israeli intelligence agencies used spying, hacking and other forms of intimidation against ICC officials in attempting to deny justice and derail the investigation in the Situation in the State of Palestine. Such acts by the Israeli military of “tampering with or interfering with the collection of evidence”, when at the trial stage, for example, may amount to “offences against the administration of justice” as stipulated by Article 70 of the Rome Statute.
In addition, the Apartheid Convention, which should be used as a guide in interpreting the definition of the crime of apartheid in the Rome Statute, specifically lists as an “inhuman act” of apartheid, the “persecution of organisations and persons by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid”. Authoritarian and repressive regimes have always implemented such tactics of intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders to obstruct their work, and Israel is no exception.
Our organisations strongly welcomed the application for arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC Prosecutor, including starvation, extermination and persecution. We note however the omission from these applications of Netanyahu and Gallant’s individual criminal responsibility for Rome Statute crimes including the ongoing transfer of Israeli nationals into occupied territory, and the public catalogue of genocidal statements of intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, including through the intentional denial of aid, which should lead to charges of direct and public incitement to the crime of genocide, and the commission of the crime of genocide.
We stress that arrest warrants are also needed against all members of the Israeli war cabinet—particularly those with decision-making powers, including Benny Gantz and many others. It is also important to note that Israeli crimes against Palestinians in Gaza do not occur in a vacuum and certainly did not begin on 8 October 2023.
For the last nine years, together with partners, we have submitted numerous communications to the ICC, including an amicus curiae to the Pre-Trial Chamber, and substantial detailed files of evidence to the Office of the Prosecutor regarding a plethora of Israeli crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) since June 2014. These submissions include files on crimes related to the illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem; the 17-year closure of Gaza; the 2014 and 2021 military offensives on Gaza; and crimes committed during Gaza’s Great March of Return, amongst others. We urge the Office of the Prosecutor to turn its attention to all international crimes committed in the aforementioned circumstances, as well as to investigate Israel’s crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people. We urge the Office of the Prosecutor to address the situation in its totality and to consider and recognise the crucial context.
The issuing of these arrest warrants expeditiously is necessary not only to serve the interests of justice but also to ensure faith in the enforceability of international law generally. The power of the ICC lies not only in its capacity to prosecute but also in its deterrent effect.
All States Parties should cooperate with the Court, once the warrants are issued, to arrest and surrender the suspects should they be found on their territory, pursuant to their obligations under Part 9 of the Rome Statute. Moreover, States Parties must express their support for the ICC’s mandate and its independence. They must unequivocally condemn the threats against the Court from Israel and the United States as they condemned threats in other situations. Notably, some states have not uttered a word about Israel and US’s outrageous threats against the Court, its officials, and their families. Hypocrisy, double standards and selectivity should not and must not have a place in international justice.
We take this occasion to reiterate our call on the Court, the OTP and the Assembly of States Parties to respond to Israel’s latest attacks on Palestinian human rights organisations and to defend human rights defenders who cooperate with the Court. The duty to defend and promote Palestinian victims’ rights to access justice is a shared one. Palestinian victims deserve justice and require equal attention.
On this occasion, commemorating International Justice Day and the 26th Anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute, we wish to recall the words of the late Benjamin Ferencz, former Nuremberg Prosecutor and advocate for international justice: “There can be no peace without justice, no justice without law, and no meaningful law without a court to decide what is just and lawful under any given circumstance.” We believe it is incumbent upon the ICC to live up to the promise of Nuremberg and to deliver on its mandate, without fear or favour, to ensure accountability and justice for victims of atrocity crimes.