Comment by bawolff

> So what's the point of issuing arrest warrants to heads of nuclear armed powers like Russia/Israel then if they wouldn't get arrested?

Well they won't be heads of state forever. The Israeli guy might even be out of power at the end of the month. And it does restrict their travel - fairly significantly. They of course didn't just issue warrants for heads of state, although the same analysis probably applies to the other accused.

Ultimately i think it was an ideological stand - The ICC prosecutor wanted to say nobody is above the law, even if practically there are limits.

At the same time, i do kind of agree, it undermines the ICC when it puts itself in a position where it knows it cant really win, and makes it seem in some ways like it is making a political statement rather than pursuing justice.

> If you go by the UN it's a non-member observer state. If you go by the de facto government of Gaza they(Hamas) clearly never signed the Rome statute.

Well yeah, that is why its a contentious question. People who recognize the state of Palestine generally view Gaza as part of it, despite the fact that the (official) state of palestine only controlled the area for a very short time long ago. Not to mention Palestine lacking some of the traditional attributes associated with states. It would be up to the judges of the ICC to determine what the ICC thinks. I think there was already a preliminary ruling, but if the Israeli accused surrendered themselves, i'm sure that would have to be relitigated.

> The de jure government [of afghanistan] may have, but not the de facto government

well, de jure & de facto at the time. Governments change, but treaty obligations stay. I think the taliban considers itself the successor state. They could have withdrawn at any point (with 1 year notice) if they felt like it. they still havent.

> They withdrew in practice since the ICC has no independent enforcement capability

The main point of withdrawing is rescinding the ICC's permission to use the states soverign ability to prosecute crimes as a basis of jurisdiction. Like yeah, there is also the cooperating in apregending fugitives bit as well, but that was always mostly on the honor system.

>It's a very strange situation where a courts rulings can be almost completely detached from the de facto jurisdiction on the ground. This whole strategy of asserting jurisdiction by the ICC without having any real enforcement capability makes it look like the ICC is making decisions that are totally detached from reality and undermines their own credibility.

I'll grant you its strange in the Palestine case, where the state of palestine does not have de facto juridsiction in gaza, but that is kind of exceptional.

In most cases the situation is more that the accused has either fled or otherwise not present in the territory, which is pretty normal for courts. Like with ukraine, i'm sure ukraine would have no problem prosecuting putin if he presented himself to ukraine. The issue is he is at large outside of the territory. That seems pretty common thing to happen in normal courts.

People give most of the attention to the weird cases, but i think the less famous icc cases tend to be a lot more normal.

In many ways, the ICC is best viewed as an extradition pact with its own court.