The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stopped an application to join the International Criminal Court, six days days after it was submitted to The Hague by his own Minister of Justice and over half way through Israel’s bombardment of Gaza... ...Abbas’ Minister for Foreign Affairs Riad Maliki disowned the application in a private meeting with the ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in The Hague on 5 August. Standing outside the prosecutor’s office, Maliki condemned the previous 28 days of Israeli bombardment as “crimes against humanity” and said he had met the prosecutor to find out what was required for Palestine to get access to the ICC. Behind closed doors, Maliki stopped the application in its tracks... This is confirmed in a letter sent on behalf of the ICC Chief Prosecutor to French lawyers of Saqqa and Jabr, a copy of which was sent to Maliki. It stated: “At that meeting, I sought to confirm whether or not your communication dated 30 July 2014 was transmitted on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, as a result of which I did not receive a positive confirmation. Accordingly there is no legal basis for my Office to consider and/or treat the 30 July 2014 communication as emanating from a representative of Palestine endowed with the required full powers to seize the Court’s jurisdiction pursuant to article 12(3) of the Statute.”... Abbas has consistently used accession to the ICC as a bargaining chip with Israel. Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath told the Palestinian news agency Maan that Abbas would activate its application to the ICC if the UN Security Council rejected a demand to set a three year deadline for Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 borders. Abbas and Netanyahu met secretly in Amman days before the ceasefire in Gaza was signed... This is the second application to have failed. Bensouda’s predecessor Luis Moreno Ocampo rejected an application in January 2009 on the grounds that it was not legally valid. That changed when the UN General Assembly changed Palestine’s status to a non-member observer State. The only remaining hurdle was to have an application signed by one of three members who the ICC consider as lawful representatives of a State, which are the head of state, the head of government and the minister of foreign affairs. All Maliki needed to do was to confirm the application made by fellow ministers in the Palestinian Unity Government. This he was unable to do...
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:22:52 +0000
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