Amnesty International, rights groups urge Palestine to join ICC

Amnesty International was among 17 Palestinian and international rights groups that sent an open letter to Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, urging him to join the International Criminal Court.

Philip Luther, head of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said the move would ‘send an important message that entrenched impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Palestinian territories must end once and for all.’

Should Palestine ratify the Rome Treaty that established the ICC, the court would be able to investigate crimes such as ‘indiscriminate attack’ and ‘unlawful arrest’ committed by either Palestine or Israel.

Since 2012, when the UN recognised an entity called the ‘state of Palestine’ as a non-member observer, it has had the option of acceding to the international tribunal.

On 2 April, Abbas published a list of 15 UN agencies and treaties he sought to join, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines the humanitarian protections applicable to civilians in a war zone.

Following Abbas' list, the state of Palestine has been bound by seven international human rights treaties.

Announcing the implementation of the agreements, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that it ‘commends the commitment of the State of Palestine to be bound by the international human rights standards contained in these treaties.’

Thursday’s open letter stated that Palestinian accession to the ICC would ‘be a vital further step towards protecting human rights.’

The ICC, according to the letter, would be able to ‘address impunity when domestic authorities are genuinely unable or unwilling to do so’.

However, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who spent nine years until 2012 as the ICC’s first prosecutor, on Wednesday warned against recourse to the court.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, Moreno-Ocampo urged the two sides to find a ‘creative’ way to resolve their differences.

Yigal Palmor, spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, dismissed the groups' appeal to Abbas as ‘unsolicited advice.’

In 2002, Israel effectively withdrew from the ICC, which classifies as a war crime ‘the transfer of population by an occupying power to occupied territory.’