Are the ICC Arrest Warrants Illegal?

Alan Baker is an Israeli expert in international law and former ambassador of the State of Israel to Canada. He is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs and has just published a short, sharp analysis of the arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, issued last week by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Basically, he says those arrest warrants are illegal!

They are illegal because they violate the court’s own statute by going beyond its authority. The court claims it has authority on the basis of the territorial rights of Palestine, but there is no state of Palestine.

There is no sovereign Palestinian territory, which is why so many international leaders keep talking about a ‘two state solution’. If Palestine already existed, the ‘solution’ would already be in place.

Further, he writes that the ICC has been extensively influenced by political manoeuvres at the United Nations to such an extent that it has lost any credibility.

Alan Baker also notes that the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, has consistently demonstrated bias regarding Palestinian claims against Israeli personnel, which violates the terms of his job as set out in the ICC’s statute.

Thus, he writes:

‘Any state co-operating with the ICC arrest warrants is endorsing an illegal
action by the court in violation of the ICC statute.’

In this interview with LBC, Natasha Hausdorff says that these arrest warrants reflect the politicisation and weaponisation of the ICC, “seemingly to target the Jewish State”, and that they have been issued despite an absence of jurisdiction, which is in breach of the Court’s own rules.