Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

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> If Netanyahu produces a document from the Israeli Supreme Court allowing his actions, doesn’t that make it impossible to prosecute him?

No, it does not.

> ICC works in conjunction with national courts

Not in the way you are suggesting.

> If a country has a functional, independent judiciary, that judiciary gets the right to address the wrong

No, the ICC will rule a case inadmissible if a state has investigated and/or prosecuted that specific case (not just if it has some general level of legal functionality), unless the ICC also fines that the investigation or prosecution was not genuine (e.g., was pretextual for the purpose of, say, giving the accused an exonerating document to wave around to protect against ICC prosecution.)

See Article 17 of the Rome Statute.

Does a country have to be a signatory to the Rome Statute to be subject to it?

No, in fact Putin was recently subjected to it.

Putin’s crimes were committed in Ukraine, which is a signatory (though not a party to it [yet]).

The "State of Palestine" (the official name in this context) is a signatory to the ICC, and is the location of the committed crimes. I guess you could technically make an argument that despite Sderot et al being an occupation under international law, because they are in the actual control of Israel which isn't a signatory then crimes committed there couldn't be prosecuted by the ICC. Given that the only party who would try to escape arrest for crimes in those areas are Hamas leadership, I doubt that's what Israel wants. Also, I doubt Hamas is willing to legally state any part of Palestine is "Israel", particularly for a relatively non-existential threat like an arrest warrant.

My limited understanding is the location/country of the proposed violation or the violators need to be a signatory. In this case, Palestine is a signatory so the actions of Israel in Palestine as well as the actions of Hamas (acting anywhere) are within the court's jurisdiction.

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