Yesterday was a game-changer for Palestinian lawfare against Israel.
The world is a different and much harsher place for Israel after the Palestinians signed the Rome Statute, which probably grants them access to the International Criminal Court.
This was the main obstacle Israel has used to block the Palestinians from filing war crimes complaints with the ICC since their first try in February 2009, after the 2008-9 Gaza war – that Palestine was not officially a state, and that it had not formally signed the Rome Statute.
Despite the shifting landscape, the Palestinians still have many legal and diplomatic hoops to jump through before Israelis (and not Israel, as the ICC only deals with individuals) will be seen in the dock at The Hague.
First, the ICC Prosecutor must recognize Palestine as a full member and accept its signature to the Rome Statute (and the Palestinians must ratify the statute as simply signing is not enough.) This is not guaranteed since the UN Security Council has not done so, but it probably will as foreshadowed by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in the recent related Comoros Islands decision.
In that decision, Bensouda decided not to open a full criminal investigation into Israeli soldiers conduct in killing nine people on the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010 for unrelated reasons, but strongly implied a readiness to recognize Palestine as a state if it signed the Rome Statute.
The post Does Abbas signing Rome Statute doom IDF to ICC war crimes trials? appeared first on Trunews:.
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