ICC arrest warrants ‘consistent with Human Rights Watch findings’
Yasmine Ahmed, the United Kingdom director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), says the ICC’s reasons for the arrest warrants are consistent with findings from HRW.
“Certainly the findings against both the Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu and [Yoav] Gallant, are consistent with [our] findings … namely that Israel has committed starvation as a weapon of war, which is a war crime,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera from London.
The organisation is urging ICC member states to abide by the warrant, the HRW director said. “It’s not every state in the world, but there are a significant number of states … and what it does do, is shrink the world for these people who have now been found to … have committed these crimes.”
Ahmed said that “consideration of criminal responsibility” is something that weighs heavily on the minds of those who are making decisions in the context of war.
“We know that war crimes and international crimes will continue to be committed, but we do know from what the work that we have done … that this is incredibly important,” she said.
ICC prosecutor urges cooperation on arrest warrants from all nations
Prosecutor Karim Khan urges ICC members as well as nonmembers to cooperate with the arrest warrants the court issued today. In a statement, he said countries that belong to the court must “live up” to their commitments.
Khan also expressed concern over reports of escalating violence, further shrinking of humanitarian access and continued expansion of alleged international crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Accusations of ICC bias towards Israel are ‘fairly ridiculous’: Former official
Former ICC official Eric Witte says judges, lawyers and staff at the court are highly professional and come from a multitude of countries.
“So the accusation that the court would be biased against any particular group of people is fairly ridiculous. But it’s nothing new for this court,” he told Al Jazeera from Brussels.
Witte explained that when the court took action against the leadership of Kenya several years ago, it was accused of neocolonialism and anti-African bias. When it brought charges against President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the response was that the ICC must be anti-Russian.
“Now we’re hearing baseless charges of anti-Semitism that are just thrown at the wall to try to smear and deflect from these very specific charges that have gone through a rigorous process,” Witte said, adding that there is no doubt ICC officials will now be targeted after open threats by US senators and others.
