An activist displays a sign with a slogan calling for the arrest of Philippine Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s, during a protest outside the Philippine Senate, which holds dela Rosa, the chief enforcer of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, in protective custody amid an International Criminal Court warrant, in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Protesters hold placards during a rally before former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s pre-trial hearings on his alleged crimes against humanity case at the International Criminal Court, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s defence had said the elderly politician, ​who is being held in The ⁠Hague over murders during his war on drugs, could not stand trial due ​to cognitive ⁠decline. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A general view of the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

When it comes to global institutions, why is the world so polarised? In particular, what explains the policy of the U.S. on enforcing rules on Israel?

Trita Parsi: Put simply, this is a genocide and we can see it happening live, on our phones. The Lancet estimates the toll to be over 1,86,000 because 43,000 is only the number of bodies that have been counted in hospitals. So, I’m not surprised by the world’s outrage in comparison to what was felt over [Russia’s invasion] of Ukraine. Roughly, 700 children were killed in Ukraine through Russian bombardment over two-and-a-half years. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza in about a year already. The intensity of this exceeds anything we have seen in any modern war.

What is surprising is America’s reaction. The Biden administration, in particular, has violated its own regulations to allow the Israeli government to do exactly what it wants. This has never happened before. The U.S. is shifting away from supporting the same international institutions, regulations, and laws that it played a crucial role in establishing. The first shift was away from international law to what it calls the ‘rules-based international order’. The rules-based order is not centred on law; it is centred on rules, and it is unclear who makes those rules. In reality, it ends up being a coalition or a willing partnership of countries, mostly allies, which is not universally accepted or applicable. This is what we are seeing when it comes to the ICC warrants as well.

Navtej Sarna: The U.S. has a sort of umbilical relationship with Israel. The U.S. has treated Israel as if it is a part of the U.S. which needs to be protected at all costs. Now the protection is for strategic reasons, but also because Israel represents a sort of a moral burden. It is the Jewish homeland, and after the Holocaust, there is a need to protect all Israelis and not let them lose the homeland. In the view of the U.S., Israel is also a democracy, a vulnerable democracy in a very hard neighbourhood, the only democracy in West Asia. While it is unstated so far, Israel is also believed to be a nuclear power, and one that can be a deterrent against another potential nuclear power that could be Iran. Now there are some contradictions: Israel’s democracy comes up against the fact that it has also been an occupying power and it is no longer vulnerable. But that has been overlooked because of the U.S.’s need to protect Israel for the other reasons I mentioned, particularly after the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas.

Israel has said the ICC warrant makes no sense because it is not a member state of the ICC, much like how India isn’t, and doesn’t submit to its jurisdiction. Can a warrant still be issued against Prime Minister Netanyahu?

Trita Parsi: Of course it can, because Israel is conducting war crimes in another country’s territory [Palestine]. This was an issue that the ICC had to address before taking up this issue.

Navtej Sarna: More than the ICC warrant, it is necessary to look at what has been done to international humanitarian law on the ground. Countries may react to the warrants one way or the other, but the sad part is that international humanitarian law has been flouted for months in [full] visibility of the world. Therefore, everybody has a responsibility to bear for allowing the [bombardment of Gaza to continue]. The U.S. has simply been putting up a diplomatic performance. If it really wanted to stop this, it could have.

Why didn’t India join the ICC and what is its position on this warrant now?

Navtej Sarna: The ICC has only 124 member states. India participated in the negotiations in the preparatory stages that led up to the setting up of the ICC in 2002. India participated in the negotiations of the Rome Statute. But it did not sign it or ratify it. India negotiates in good faith and when it finds that it can’t agree to some of the terms, it doesn’t sign. It is better than signing and flouting the terms. The reasons for not signing at the time were many. The Indian government felt that the ICC did not give sufficient place for national administrative and judicial institutions to deal with such crimes and it did not recognise the use of nuclear weapons and the use of other weapons of mass destruction as a crime which could be punished. It also did not recognise terrorism as a punishable crime against humanity, which, I think, was probably the breaking point for India, which had been a victim of terrorism for decades. Regarding the present ICC warrants [in the cases of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Netanyahu], India has made it clear that it does not have much faith in the ICC.

At the UN Security Council (UNSC), there has been a logjam over votes involving Israel and Russia. Even in cases where the UNSC has passed resolutions, such as Afghanistan and Myanmar, the regimes in power are flouting directions with impunity. Are we reaching a point where the international world order, as is defined by these institutions, is unable to function? What would it take to make states including Israel compliant?

Navtej Sarna: It is clear that UNSC resolutions don’t mean a thing any more. In the case of Israel, the U.S. veto is used almost automatically. Naturally, Russia is going to use its veto for its own purposes, to protect itself, as it has in the past few years. The fact remains that the situation in which the UN was formed has changed from 1945. So even if the UNSC believes it can still deliver, the truth is it cannot. Every country has decided to live on a transactional, immediate short-term policy paradigm. There are no ‘value-based international relations’ today. It is not as if countries did not work in national interest earlier, but the brazenness with which we see ‘realpolitik’ used is at a different level. Until this situation changes — and I don’t see any signs of that — this kind of breakdown of international systems will probably increase.

Trita Parsi: I agree that we are in a very bad situation. However, I don’t think there is a collective desire not to have any rules and laws that will guide state to state conduct at this point. We can point to all of these examples in which clearly the system has not worked, but those are perhaps 5% of the situations. Of the interactions that are taking place in the world, there are many in which laws are being followed.

The UNSC absolutely needs reform. It has become a joke and at some point, it will become irrelevant. Things are going to get worse, but there is going to be a tipping point in which a critical mass of countries will recognise that it is actually in their interest to have a functioning global order and effective institutions that help uphold international conventions and laws.

Do you see Israel being brought to account internationally, or a ceasefire in Gaza any time soon, especially given the upcoming change in U.S. administration?

Trita Parsi: There is a likelihood of a ceasefire because incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will take a tough position on ending the war. While he has shown little regard for global institutions, and sees transactional value in backing Israel, I think he does not want to see the U.S. get dragged into another war in West Asia.

Navtej Sarna: I think Mr. Trump’s main motivation would be to show himself as the ultimate winner who can say he delivered on his campaign promise to stop the wars. But a ceasefire will not mean peace. Mr. Trump’s next step will be to want to go back to the Abraham Accords, which will be more difficult than it was in Trump 1.0 (2017-2021). The landscape has changed considerably for the countries that signed the accords (the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco) and those that the U.S. was trying to bring on board (Saudi Arabia). There won’t be a return to peace or negotiations until the heart of the problem is addressed, which is the need for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Listen to the conversation in The Hindu Parley podcast

Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing is accused of crimes against humanity for the deportation and persecution of the Rohingya. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor asked judges on Wednesday (November 27, 2024) to issue an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, who took power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the deportation and persecution of the Rohingya.

Nearly a million people were forced into neighbouring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes.

From a refugee camp in Bangladesh, the court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement that he intends to request more warrants for Myanmar’s leaders soon.

“In doing so, we will be demonstrating, together with all of our partners, that the Rohingya have not been forgotten. That they, like all people around the world, are entitled to the protection of the law,” the British barrister said.

The allegations stem from a counterinsurgency campaign that Myanmar’s military began in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. Mr. Hlaing, who heads the Myanmar Defence Services, is said to have directed the armed forces of Myanmar, known as the Tatmadaw, as well as national police to attack Rohingya civilians.

Mr. Khan was in Bangladesh where he met with members of the displaced Rohingya population. About 1 million of the predominately Muslim Rohingya live in Bangladesh as refugees from Myanmar, including about 740,000 who fled in 2017.

Rohingyas face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with most denied citizenship. Myanmar’s government refuses to recognise the Rohingya as one of the country’s 135 lawful ethnic minorities, instead calling them Bengalis, with the implication that their native land is in Bangladesh and they are illegally settled in Myanmar.

Human rights groups applauded the decision to seek a warrant. The dire situation of the Rohingya has received less attention as the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have grabbed headlines.

“The ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek a warrant against Sr Gen Min Aung Hlaing comes amid renewed atrocities against Rohingya civilians that echo those suffered seven years ago. The ICC’s action is an important step toward breaking the cycle of abuses and impunity,” said Maria Elena Vignoli, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.

Zin Mar Aung, foreign minister for Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government, established by elected lawmakers barred from taking their seats in 2021, said on X that ICC judges should “swiftly issue the warrant” and that governments should “act and enforce this warrant to uphold justice and international law”. She posted that the ICC action “represents a critical moment in Myanmar history”.

Thet Swe, a spokesperson for the military regime, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Khan’s request now goes to a panel of three judges who will weigh the evidence provided and determine if a warrant should be issued. There is no deadline for a decision. A request for an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin took less than three weeks in 2023 but judges issued warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister and Hamas’ military chief more than six months after Mr. Khan asked.

Myanmar does not belong to the global court, but Bangladesh does. In 2018 judges at the court ruled the prosecutor could look into crimes which were “completed” on the territory of a member state, such as forcible deportation.

In 2019, Mr. Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, formally requested to open an investigation into the situation and judges gave the green light for investigations into “any crime, including any future crime” committed at least partly in Bangladesh or another court member state and linked to the Rohingya.

The move paved the way for Mr. Khan to pursue crimes beyond forcing men, women and children over the border and into refugee camps.

The request comes days after a powerful rebel group seized a key trading town in northeastern Myanmar on the Chinese border, taking control of a lucrative rare earth mining hub in another setback for the military-led government.

The military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021, triggering intensified fighting with long-established armed militias organised by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups in its border regions which have struggled for decades for more autonomy.

In 2022, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest court, advanced a separate case against Myanmar brought by Gambia alleging the Southeast Asian nation is responsible for genocide against the Rohingya. Five European countries and Canada have asked the court to back Gambia in the proceedings.

A view of the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A key United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly committee adopted a resolution on Friday (November 22, 2024) paving way for negotiations on a first-ever treaty on preventing and punishing crimes against humanity after Russia dropped amendments that would have derailed the effort.

The resolution was approved by consensus by the assembly’s legal committee, which includes all 193-member U.N. nations, after tense last-minute negotiations between its supporters and Russia that dragged through the day.

There was a loud applause when the chairman of the committee gavelled the resolution’s approval. It is virtually certain to be adopted when the General Assembly puts it to a final vote on December 4.

International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister, Hamas leader Mohammed Deif

“Today’s agreement to start up negotiations on a much-needed international treaty is an historic achievement that was a long time coming,” Richard Dicker, Human Rights Watch’s senior legal adviser for advocacy, told The Associated Press.

“It sends a crucial message that impunity for the kinds of crimes inflicted on civilians in Ethiopia, Sudan, Ukraine, southern Israel, Gaza and Myanmar will not go unheeded,” he said.

The resolution calls for a time-bound process with preparatory sessions in 2026 and 2027, and three-week negotiating sessions in 2028 and 2029 to finalise a treaty on crimes against humanity.

Mr. Dicker said Russia’s proposed amendments left in question whether treaty negotiations would have been completed. Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Maria Zabolotskaya said Russia withdrew the amendments “in a spirit of compromise.” But she said Russia “dissociates itself from consensus.”

“This, of course, does not mean that we are not ready to work on this crucial convention,” Ms. Zabolotskaya told the committee.

The great significance of the ICC’s step

The International Criminal Court was established to punish major perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and it has 124 countries that are parties to it. The ICC says crimes against humanity are committed as part of a large-scale attack on civilians and it lists 15 forms including murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, sexual slavery, torture and deportation. But the ICC does not have jurisdiction over nearly 70 other countries.

There are global treaties that cover war crimes, genocide and torture — but there has been no specific treaty addressing crimes against humanity. And according to sponsors of the resolution, led by Mexico and Gambia and backed by 96 other countries, a new treaty will fill the gap.

Kelly Adams, legal advisor at the Global Justice Center, also called the resolution “a historic breakthrough” after many delays. Pointing to “the proliferation of crimes against humanity around the world,” she expressed hope that a treaty will be “strong, progressive and survivor-centric.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard expressed disappointment that the timeline had been extended until 2029, but said, “What’s important is that this process will deliver a viable convention.”

“It is long overdue and all the more welcome at a time when too many states are intent on wrecking international law and universal standards,” she said. “It is a clear sign that states are ready to reinforce the international justice framework and clamp down on safe havens from investigation and prosecution for perpetrators of these heinous crimes.”

After the resolution’s adoption, Gambia’s Counselor Amadou Jaiteh, who had introduced it hours earlier, called its approval “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference,” to hope for a world without crimes against humanity, “and a world where voices of victims are heard louder than their perpetrators.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Judges at the International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Chief, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20, that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct.7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.

Also Read: A brief history of starvation as a ‘war crime’ | Explained

The ICC said Israel’s acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction was not required.

Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza. Israel has said it killed Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in airstrike but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.

Ulaanbaatar:

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Mongolia for an official visit on Tuesday, his first to an International Criminal Court (ICC) member since it issued a warrant for his arrest last year.

Putin was welcomed by an honour guard the night before as he landed in Ulaanbaatar to begin the high-profile trip, seen as a show of defiance against the court, Kyiv, the West and rights groups that have all called for him to be detained.

The Russian leader is wanted by the Hague-based court for the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children since his troops invaded the country in 2022.

Ukraine has reacted to the trip with fury.

On Monday, it accused Mongolia of “sharing responsibility” for Putin’s “war crimes” after authorities did not detain him at the airport.

Kyiv had urged Mongolia to execute the arrest warrant, while the ICC said last week all its members had an “obligation” to detain those sought by the court.

In practice, there is little that can be done if Ulaanbaatar does not comply.

A vibrant democracy situated between authoritarian giants Russia and China, Mongolia enjoys close cultural links to Moscow as well as a critical trading relationship with Beijing.

It was under Moscow’s sway during the Soviet era.

And since the Soviet collapse in 1991, it has sought to keep friendly relations with both the Kremlin and Beijing.

The country has not condemned Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the United Nations.

The Kremlin said last week it was not concerned that Putin would be arrested during the visit.

– ‘Get Putin out of here’ –

The capital’s central Genghis Khan Square, also known as Sukhbaatar Square, was decked out Monday with huge Mongolian and Russian flags for Putin’s first visit to the country in five years.

A small protest gathered in the afternoon, with demonstrators holding a sign demanding “Get War Criminal Putin out of here”.

Another protest is planned at midday Tuesday at Ulaanbaatar’s Monument for the Politically Repressed, which honours those who suffered under Mongolia’s decades-long Soviet-backed communist regime.

Mongolia’s government has not commented on the calls to arrest Putin.

But a spokesman for President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh took to social media on Sunday to deny reports that the ICC had sent a letter asking it to execute the warrant when he visits.

Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.

And Amnesty International warned Monday that Mongolia’s failure to arrest Putin could further undermine the ICC’s legitimacy, while emboldening the ex-KGB spy, in power for almost a quarter of a century.

“President Putin is a fugitive from justice,” Altantuya Batdorj, executive director of Amnesty International Mongolia, said in a statement.

“Any trip to an ICC member state that does not end in arrest will encourage President Putin’s current course of action and must be seen as part of a strategic effort to undermine the ICC’s work.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

When Karim A.A. Khan was sworn in as the chief public prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in June 2021, he famously said the Court should be judged by its act — “the proof of the pudding should be in the eating”. By announcing his decision on May 20 to apply for arrest warrants against both the leadership of Hamas and Israel, Mr. Khan seems to have taken an indelible step towards demanding accountability for the Israel-Hamas war.

In an unprecedented event in the history of the World Court, often ridiculed for its glacial slowness, the prosecutor said there are reasonable grounds to believe that three of Hamas’s most senior leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In an international law career spanning decades, the British litigator of Pakistani origin has crafted a reputation as a gifted orator and a formidable prosecutor. Mr. Khan has partly credited his early interest in international human rights to his experience of doing voluntary work with the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, a persecuted sect of Islam, of which he is a member. Before his stint at the ICC, Mr. Khan was a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and served for both the defence and the prosecution at several international courts. He was involved in investigating war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia and Lebanon, and also led the UN team investigating crimes committed by the Islamic State terrorist group.

The 54-year-old has faced controversies throughout a career that included stints defending Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia who was convicted of war crimes in Sierra Leone. In 2007, Mr. Khan staged a dramatic walkout from the proceedings against the Liberian dictator following a dispute regarding the resources allotted to the defence. In another contentious case, in 2016, the ICC dropped crimes against humanity charges against his client Kenya’s President William Ruto after what was described as a “troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling”. A key witness in the case had been killed two years ago.

Also read: Debunked accounts of Hamas’s sexual crimes fuel debates over Israel’s war

Although Mr. Khan was not accused of any wrongdoing, he addressed the mistrial in an open letter before the ICC election detailing how he did everything possible to prevent witness intimidation. The prosecutor was originally not on the shortlist for the ICC role but was later included following discreet lobbying by British bureaucrats and Kenyan officials. The Kenyan government’s campaign for Mr. Khan’s candidacy was attributed to his trenchant defence of its Premier.

Pursuing accountability

Mr. Khan seems to be a man on a mission to establish the ICC’s legitimacy in pursuing accountability from heads of state without fear or favour. Responding swiftly to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he sought arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Kremlin official Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova last year over their alleged role in the deportation of Ukrainian children. This was followed by a second round of warrants against top Russian commanders over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Such a relentless pursuit ended up placing Mr. Khan on Russia’s wanted list in an act of retribution.

The decision to seek warrants against Israel’s leadership with staunch opposition from the U.S. and other Western states is a resounding retort to criticism that the Court is biased against African nations where so many of its cases have been focused. While U.S. President Joe Biden has called the move “outrageous”, a dozen Republican senators in April this year, penned a chilling letter “warning” Mr. Khan of consequences after reports began to circulate that such a decision was imminent. But the ICC prosecutor remains undeterred telling CNN that the decision is “not a witch hunt” but in accordance with what is expected from an independent Court.

Well aware of the political ramifications, Mr. Khan has disclosed a list of distinguished experts, two of them former judges, who have backed his claims. While acknowledging that “disinformation has been rife”, the experts have unanimously agreed that the prosecutor’s work has been fair and rigorous. Although it remains to be seen whether the evidence will withstand scrutiny in a courtroom, the English barrister is here to challenge the long-standing scepticism against the efficacy of international law.