Experts criticize ICC for bringing rapid prosecutions against Israel while ignoring brutal regimes: ‘totally politically motivated’

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sparked anger by considering issuing arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials, prompting critics to highlight cases of rogue countries where leaders appear to escape scrutiny of the Court.

“Although the ICC has existed for more than two decades, it has recorded fewer than 10 successful prosecutions,” Orde Kittrie, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. told Fox News Digital.

“He has spent over $2 billion. It has been truly ineffective, and that makes it particularly ironic that he is going after Israeli officials. Israel is not a member state of the ICC, and the ICC is prohibited by its charter from attacking a state that effectively polices its own alleged violations,” Kittrie said. “Israel controls its own alleged violations, so the ICC really has no business going after Israeli officials.”

“It’s obviously totally political,” he added. “These failures are clearly motivated by politics and by the same anti-Israeli animism that has long dominated the UN and other international organizations whose issues must be treated as what they are: this is a legal war par excellence, a political vendetta disguised as a legal procedure.”

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“In no case should they have filed a complaint against Israel,” Kittrie argued. “The ICC prosecutor decided to do this for political reasons… there is more pressure on him to bring a case against Israel than against much more deserving candidates, so that’s what he does. It’s essentially windsock law.”

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced this week that he would file a petition seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar , Ismail Haniyeh and military commander Mohammed Deif.

Khan said the decision resulted from a review of the evidence by a panel of experts, including human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney. Khan said his office found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israeli officials “bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the territory of the State of Palestine.”

Khan cited alleged crimes of “starving civilians as a method of warfare” and “directing attacks against a civilian population.”

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Critics have criticized Khan for what they see as equating Israeli officials with Hamas by seeking arrest warrants for both sets of leaders. Khan’s office “unanimously concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders… committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murders and crimes of sexual violence,” according to Clooney’s statement.

Thus, many have cited egregious examples of missing cases that they believe the ICC should pursue, such as those of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and any Iranian regime official .

Gabriel Noronha, former State Department advisor on Iran and current Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA Fellow), on social media platform X, also singled out Chinese President Xi Jinping for the alleged treatment of his country towards the Uyghur population and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who the UN accused of having committed “crimes against humanity”.

The Court, for its part, has ongoing investigations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Mali, Afghanistan, the Philippines and into crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, with cases recently closed and pending. the study in Uganda, Central African Republic, Kenya and Georgia. An investigation remains open in Venezuela since 2021 after a three-year preliminary examination.

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The ICC has already drawn a clear line as to who it can and cannot prosecute in cases, based on its composition as determined by signatories to the Rome Statute. The court looked at two different cases brought against North Korea – one in 2014 and one in 2016 – and determined that in the first case the court had jurisdiction because South Korea was a signatory, but that in the second case , only North Korea was outside its jurisdiction because it was not a signatory, the Korea Herald reported.

The Court has, however, acted outside of this measure before, notably when Russia invaded Ukraine and the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. .

Ukraine and Russia have signed the Rome Statute, but neither has ratified it, and Russia simply withdrew its signature in 2016. Ukraine, however, accepted the jurisdiction of the Court, which allowed the ICC to investigate alleged Russian crimes after the 2022 invasion.

Israel is not a signatory, but the Palestinian Territories, called the State of Palestine by the ICC, is a signatory to and has ratified the Rome Statute, which would give the ICC jurisdiction to investigate alleged crimes in the Gaza Strip. The announcement regarding the arrest warrant request this week also referred to the “territory of Israel”, even though the United Nations (not affiliated with the ICC) does not recognize a Palestinian state and recognizes the State of Israel . The UN grants the Palestinian territories non-member observer status, but the territories signed the Rome Statute in 2015.

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Fox News Digital contacted the ICC prosecutor’s office but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

China, Syria and Iran are not signatories to the Rome Statute, unlike Venezuela. The Court sidestepped the 2016 North Korea case because the problem seemed internal, and the China, Syria, and Iran cases consisted largely of internal issues that would provide the ICC with little of territorial justification.

Kittrie said the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants ultimately did not carry much weight, pointing to the fact that the warrant had not deterred Putin from continuing his war for a third year and that he remained in freedom.

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“It made no difference, it won’t make any difference,” Kittrie said, noting that it gave the prosecutor “the feeling that he was getting legitimacy from the United States,” which is also not a signatory to the agreement. Rome Statute.

“I think one of the first things the United States is going to do is end its assistance to the ICC. No, they don’t provide funding to the ICC…but they provide various types of intelligence and other practical assistance, which is crucial to the ICC’s ability to achieve great success.