#rome statute

[dontforgetukraine]

Mongolian activists in Ulaanbaatar have taken to the streets to express their support for Ukraine Putin arrived in the country, with the country refusing to arrest him despite being subject to the ICC’s Rome Statute

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Trump risks ICC arrest warrant being issued for him, says human rights lawyer

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws told the House of Lords that the Article 70 of the Rome Statute forbids the obstruction of justice.

Donald Trump risks an arrest warrant being issued for him after he imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), a top human rights lawyer has warned.

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights, argued that Article 70 of the Rome Statute forbids the obstruction of justice.

The Labour peer told the House of Lords that, under this law, no officer of the ICC can be impeded in carrying out their duties.

“There can be no impeding of any officer of the court in carrying out their duties, and arrest warrants can follow.”

Her comments came after the US president issued an executive order in response to what is described as “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.

Lady Kennedy said: “The world will never see peace if there is no entity which will pursue justice for victims of egregious crimes. There cannot be impunity for our allies. Even now, the court is working on files to bring yet more members of Hamas to trial for the atrocities that took place on 7th October, and it is assisted in this painful work by Israeli lawyers for the families of the hostages and the families of the Israeli dead. Work continues also on the investigation of potential war crimes in Gaza. Does the Government accept that this new executive order attacks the fundamentals of the court and its functioning? And will the Government inform the United States administration, in these contracts that it has, that Article 70 of the Rome Statute forbids the obstruction of justice? There can be no impeding of any officer of the court in carrying out their duties, and arrest warrants can follow. Will the Government advise the president of the risk he faces of an arrest warrant being issued for him?”

Mr Trump signed the executive order to impose sanctions after The Hague’s investigations into Israel in its war with Hamas.

In November, judges at the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.

Lady Kennedy sat on the ICC panel which reviewed the evidence used by the prosecutor’s office to apply for warrants and helped assess whether thresholds for evidence were met.

Prosecutors then applied for the warrants and they were issued by the court.

Human rights campaigner and independent crossbench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool urged the Government to “protest in the strongest possible terms” that Lady Kennedy has been “threatened with visa restrictions and potential fines for dealing with clients who are a part of the process of the International Criminal Court”.

Responding, Foreign Office minister Lord Collins of Highbury said: “The Government has repeatedly expressed its support for the independence of the International Criminal Court, including most recently last week by joining a statement together with 70 other States Parties. Imposing sanctions against ICC officials impedes the court’s ability to carry out its important work investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes of international concern. We are in contact with the US administration and British nationals employed by the ICC to understand the possible implications of these measures.”

He added: “Successive UK and US administrations have taken a different view on the ICC. The UK is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the US are not. The UK supports fully the independence of the ICC and we do not support sanctioning individual court officials. Our focus remains on ensuring the ceasefire can be sustained and a surge of vital aid can reach those most in need in Gaza and that all remaining hostages are released and reunited with their families. That’s our goal and we are working with the US at all levels on that and we will continue to do so.”

Former deputy High Court judge Lord Thomas of Gresford said that the forcible transfer of the population of Gaza, under Mr Trump’s plan, would be a crime against humanity under Article 7.1(d) of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

The Liberal Democrat peer added that, under Section 2 of the UK’s International Criminal Court Act 2001, the Attorney General “has no discretion but to endorse any warrant of arrest for the President issued by the ICC”.

He claimed that this would mean “no more golf for the President at Balmedie and Turnberry and certainly no more cups of tea and parades with our good King Charles”.

The UK Government has been clear that Palestinians must be allowed to return to their homes and rebuild Gaza, and that it would oppose any effort to move them to neighbouring countries against their will.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trump's immunity demands go global

When it comes to the power of the courts, President Donald Trump has learned his lesson. Unfortunately, thanks to the United States Supreme

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

When it comes to the power of the courts, President Donald Trump has learned his lesson. Unfortunately, thanks to the United States Supreme Court inventing a new form of immunity to protect him from any consequences, the lesson Trump seems to have learned is that all courts, everywhere, should do the same.  So Trump is taking his show on the road to demand that the International Criminal Court agree never to prosecute him or any of his top officials who have been party to the straight-up murder of boaters in the Caribbean. If they won’t agree, he’s going to slap sanctions on the whole court.  Trump is right to worry, as should Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Whether you characterize their actions as war crimes or murder, they are crimes nonetheless. 

To get a special gift of immunity from the ICC, however, is a wee bit harder than getting it from the Supreme Court, which only required convincing six amoral conservative justices. The ICC would literally have to amend its founding documents, known as the Rome Statute, just to protect Trump.  Well, how hard can that be, really? Just yell at the ICC and threaten sanctions until they do it, right? Not quite. The ICC was established by a treaty, the aforementioned Rome Statute. It lays out the international crimes that the ICC can investigate: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. The ICC only has authority to act if a state will not. In other words, the ICC couldn’t do a thing to Trump if the United States were investigating or prosecuting him, but we know that’s never going to happen. 

Amending the Rome Statute to somehow give Trump special protection would require two-thirds of the signatories to agree to the amendment. There are 125 countries that have signed, and we’ve alienated a bunch of them, so the idea that 80 or more countries would agree to wrap Trump in a blanket of immunity is absurd. 

[...] Oh, wait, it might be even harder than that. The move would also need approval from the ICC’s governing body, and because the change in the court’s jurisdiction would be so major and so fundamental, it might require approval from more than two-thirds of the members.  The United States had already slapped sanctions on individual ICC judges and prosecutors for daring to investigate Israel’s war crimes back in August, and to force the ICC to stop investigating possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, we sanctioned nine ICC officials. We have never, however, sanctioned the whole court, which is what Trump is threatening to do. 

Tinpot dictator Trump demands the International Criminal Court (ICC) not prosecute him or any of his associates for the lawless war crimes in the Caribbean.

[twitterexile]

⚡️🇯🇵🇮🇱JUST IN: A hotel named Guesthouse Wind Villa (ゲストハウス) in Kyoto asked guests to sign a pledge of non-involvement in war crimes.

In response, the Israeli embassy in Japan sent an angry letter after an Israeli guest was asked to fill out the form.

[rosabie]

[oh-my-damn]

WHY is Netanyahu speaking at a UN conference in NYC when there is a WARRANT out for his ARREST by the ICC????

Why is he not being ARRESTED in the United States, a permanent member of the Security Council of UN, when the ICC was created as result of the Rome Statute, created by the UN?????

WHY ARE WE WASTING OUR TIME CREATING ALLIANCES AND MAKING RULES IF YOU'RE GOING TO BLATANTLY DISRESPECT THEM. EVEN THE ONES YOU YOURSELF TOOK PART IN CREATING.

WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?????????

Dozens walk out of UN as Netanyahu speaks | CNN

[fallensapphires]

Destinations: Rome

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

[katchwreck]

American Service-Members' Protection Act protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party, for example the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.