by spwa4 | 2025-10-25 21:44:53+00:00
> The ICC has no jurisdiction in America, Russia or China. Nor India, Pakistan ...

That is because the ICC has no jurisdiction unless the UN accepted government of the involved territory grants them jurisdiction. The only UN accepted government in Israel is the Israeli government. So according to the Rome statute, only Israel's government gets to decide if a case on Israel's territory (and Gaza is Israeli territory) is allowed to proceed, and of course, they don't want this case to proceed. There is hamas and the PA, who aren't UN accepted governments of any territory whatsoever, who both have signed the Rome statute but have also both sworn to never carry out any ICC judgement.

So now there's ONE exception: The ICC asserts jurisdiction, against the will of the local government, in ONE single location: Israel. In fact the ICC adjusted it's own rules to do this. Is the ICC allowed to change it's own rules? Well, no, of course it isn't. Yet the case is proceeding.

There's another problem, the ICC also has a rule: it does not accept cases unless the government on the ground actually upholds the Rome statute. Now here there's more exceptions. South Africa, Mongolia, Hungary, Sudan, and others have all signed the Rome treaty but have openly violated it, and the ICC has refused their cases ... sometimes. Now of course, Palestine is another example: both Hamas and the PA have signed the Rome Statute (hamas did when they went for election in 2006), have never left it and refused to carry it out when called upon. Now to be fair the ICC refused the Palestinian case, and them refusing to uphold the ICC treaty they signed was a factor in that. But South Africa was allowed to lodge a complaint, despite that they also refused to carry out the ICC treaty (2 cases: against the Sudanese president Assad and sort-of against Russian president Putin). Again the ICC changed it's rules, again, to allow the case to move forward.

Even at the ICC, starting cases after you've declared you'll never accept any judgement if you lose is not allowed. That the case is still proceeding means justice and respecting international treaties has long gone out the window.

The point here is that the government of Palestine shouldn't be allowed to start cases at the ICC, according to Rome treaty rules, because their governments aren't accepted. AND they shouldn't allowed to start cases, because they have declared they have no intention of ever carrying out ICC arrest warrants against Palestinians and have no intention of doing so (in fact both Hamas spokesmen and Abbas have shouted, repeatedly and loudly, on TV that they will never ever carry out an ICC decision against a Palestinian). Oh and Hamas is a terrorist organization that itself is outlawed by the UN.

So there is a bit of a question what a conviction of Israel would prove, now that the ICC has changed it's own rules, "illegally", TWICE to even allow a case to be brought, and will have to do so a third time to convict (that's what the whole intent issue is about). Currently the court has tried "to be fair" by issuing arrest warrants on both sides, but of course nobody, least of all Palestinians, discuss the little detail that Palestine is facing the exact same accusation as Israel (and technically the court has declared that hamas did commit genocide on October 7 2023, with full intent, even if they stopped short of convicting them there and then). Of course changing the law to convict a Jew because of politics is nothing new.

There's also the question of what any outcome of this case would accomplish, since Israel has withdrawn from the Rome treaty long before the case was brought, and so won't carry out any court decision (and that's legal according to UN law), and while Palestine has signed the Rome treaty, they have sworn and openly declared many times they won't carry out any court decision (illegally, as in the signed treaties saying they would carry them out, then just don't do it) (and the question "If Palestine signs treaties then doesn't carry them out, what's the point of any treaties with them?" isn't allowed to be discussed). Neither the court, nor the UN, have any power to carry out a decision themselves. So what is the point of the case, exactly?

Frankly, clearly for Palestinians this case isn't being fought on merit but on politics. And if it's fought on politics, then what is the problem with what Trump and Israel are doing?