The United Kingdom (UK) has said it will not proceed with efforts to question whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“On the ICC submission … I can confirm the government will not be pursuing [the proposal] in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters on Friday.
The decision puts distance between Starmer’s new Labour government and the plans of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who had planned to challenge the warrant.
In May, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s war on Gaza. He also sought warrants for three leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas over alleged war crimes committed during the October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
Court documents made public in June showed the UK, an ICC member state, had filed a request with the court to provide written observations on whether “the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals [under] the Oslo Accords”.
The Sunak government had managed to gain court approval to submit arguments before the July 4 general elections, which the Conservatives lost. The ICC first gave the government time until July 12 to file a legal opinion, which was extended to July 26.
Since winning a landslide victory three weeks ago, the Labor Party and its new government have announced a series of shifts from the policies of the previous administration.
The prosecutor of International Criminal Court seeks arrest warrant for Israeli PM over alleged crimes during the war on Gaza.
In May, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. He also sought warrants for three leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas over alleged war crimes committed during the October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
The UK has not issued a formal challenge to the arrest warrants yet. The former Conservative government had only managed to gain court approval to submit arguments before the July 4 UK elections, which the Conservatives lost, leaving the challenge up in the air. The ICC first gave the UK government time until July 12 to file a legal opinion. That was then extended to July 26.
According to court documents, the Conservative government’s lawyers argued that there were questions to be answered about the ICC’s jurisdiction over Israeli nationals before an arrest warrant could be issued.
The lawyers made this argument in relation to the Israeli leaders only and not to the Hamas leaders.
In their filing, the lawyers asked for permission to provide written observations on whether “the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction”.
In June, ICC judges ruled that they would allow the UK, as an ICC member state, to submit arguments about the legality of the potential arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
The ICC said it would accept submissions from parties interested in the legal issues concerning arrest warrants for the Israeli officials until July 12, but the deadline was extended to July 26 for the UK due to its general election this month.
Source: Al Jazeera and other media outlets
