Comment by bawolff
12 hours ago
> campaign to dismantle the ICC for echoing similar findings
i feel like this misrepresents what the ICC has found. They found there was enough plausible cause to issue a warrant. That means they think that a trial should take place to figure out what is going on. It does not mean they think anyone is guilty. Lots of people subject to warrants end up being found innocent. Its step 1 of the process not the entire process.
And to further clarify, if your implication is that its similar to accusations of genocide - the ICC has jurisdiction over genocide and did not publicly issue a warrant for that charge against any israeli national.
To be clear i find the us campaign disgusting.
Warrant issuance is only done if pre-trial chamber deems the suspects would continue the crimes (they very apparently did - total blockade of Gaza in 2025 leading to starvation of around 1 million people), or tamper with investigation (killing witnesses, etc. - also happened, many journalists were killed on purpose since, organizations tracking harm were banned as "terrorists" in Israel, and that's just what's easy to see, and lots of evidence is being destroyed to this day as Israel continues blowing up and buldozing Gaza, also on purpose, and also against orders of ICJ in the case against Israel as a state, not just against Netanyahu).
And you don't know much about the ICC process and could not have observed it if you think warrant is step 1. It's like step 7. If you did not watch the process, you can still learn the ICC procedure from the rules of the court. It's all freely available on their website.
> Warrant issuance is only done if pre-trial chamber deems the suspects would continue the crimes
This is untrue. ICC sometimes issues warrants for crimes that were in the past where it is unlikely the crime will continue.
>tamper with investigation (killing witnesses, etc
While this is something the ICC could issue a warrant for if there was reasonable cause, to date they have not publicly. So far the ICC has not accused Israel of this.
>And you don't know much about the ICC process and could not have observed it if you think warrant is step 1. It's like step 7. If you did not watch the process, you can still learn the ICC procedure from the rules of the court. It's all freely available on their website.
i was oversimplifying a bit, like yes, there is some process around letting complemtary take its course, but the warrant is the first step where the accused can actually do anything about it. my point was its very far away from a guilty verdict
Right. I was not very careful with "only if". :)
In any case ICC warrants are not public. Only state parties know the content of the warrants. We don't know what's exactly in them. Only PR is public.
Anyway, it sounded like you're arguing that ICC warrant is something OTP asks for willy nilly on suspicion of a crime. But there is a long prior process where even opening the investigation has to be approved by the chamber or asked for by a state party. Then there's investigation, which in this case was likely quite extensive and helped by third parties, given that just Pillay's UN commission of inquiry alone provided ~7000 pieces of verified evidence and that's just scratching the surface, given that several state parties refered the situation in Palestine to the court, including Palestine itself, court does its own outreach to victims, and I know several projects that periodically sent/d tons of data collected from social media where Israeli state itself publicly posted its massacres of hundreds of civilians per strike early on.
https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2024/6/19/never-see...
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