Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly weighing a plan to hold Israel accountable for the latest Gaza war at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch called for the ICC to investigate the killing of at least 1,150 protesters by Egyptian security forces at Rabaa al-Adawiya last year. And this week a U.N. human rights commission called for Syria’s regime to face justice at the ICC. The ICC has jurisdiction in 122 countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, which enables the tribunal to prosecute individuals in those nations for war crimes. But the United States and the vast majority of Middle East nations — including Syria, Israel and Egypt — have not joined the 2002 treaty, which established a global mechanism to pursue accountability for crimes against humanity. As with any other international body, the ICC and its authority depend on the cooperation of its members. And so far, the track record of the major powers at the ICC suggests that their commitment to seeing perpetrators prosecuted has been lacking. If citizens of nonmember states are accused of committing crimes against humanity in their home country, they may be referred for prosecution by the U.N. Security Council — but the routine political discord in that body makes such prosecution unlikely. There have been only two such ICC referrals: Sudan in 2005 for crimes committed in Darfur and Libya in 2011 for mass killings at the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s rule. Only Darfur has resulted in a trial, with a court date set for November. What are the prospects for ICC prosecutions in the cases of Syria, Israel and Egypt?
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:25:12 +0000
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