The pre-trial chamber will now consider the prosecutor’s request and determine whether to uphold the charges. A trial will take place if the charges are proven true and the accused is brought before the judge. The defendants must be present for the ICC to hold a trial. A case before the court may be postponed for up to a year by the five permanent members of the Security Council, which includes the United States. However, this takes nine affirmative votes and is unlikely to occur in the event of a veto.
While Hamas leaders, particularly Haniye, who is currently in Qatar, can be turned over to the Court, Netanyahu’s immunity as the current president of state is a significant question. This problem also came up when the ICC issued arrest warrants for both Putin and Omar Al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan.
Since the ICC lacks a police force of its own, national jurisdictions are used to carry out the enforcement of its arrest warrants. The Court has previously ruled that all 124 of its member states—excluding Pakistan, which rejects the Court’s jurisdiction—are legally required to uphold the Court’s warrants and detain anyone who is the subject of an outstanding order and enters their nation.
Such demands have been rejected by most states. Despite visiting over 22 states, Al-Bashir is renowned for not having been arrested in any of them. There are now 17 people on the loose who have arrest warrants against them. I thought that Netanyahu was immune from criminal prosecution, just as I thought Putin and Bashir were. Being the head of state at the moment shields him from prosecution, so he shouldn’t be detained.
But in Western states, there might not be a position quite as consistent as mine. Although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the arrest warrant against Netanyahu “shameful,” US President Joe Biden had stated that the one against Putin was “justified.” Meanwhile, African nations came under fire from the European Union for failing to detain Bashir.
It would be fascinating to observe how these states respond to the current arrest warrants against Netanyahu, particularly Germany, which advocated for Sudan to respond to the arrest warrant against Bashir in a “sober way” and claimed that the warrant against Putin demonstrated that “nobody is above the law.” That means Netanyah shouldn’t be considering a summer vacation in Munich.
Does the criminal justice system function?
Stalin recommended that all Nazis should be murdered while deciding what to do with the vanquished party after World War II. Churchill concurred, saying that everyone ought to be shot. Roosevelt, on the other hand, disagreed and convinced them that an international court should preside over proceedings. “That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stayed the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submitted their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason,” Justice Robert Jackson said in a statement that was really quite beautiful.
The Nuremberg trials gave rise to contemporary international criminal law.
However, the idea that the trials had “discredited Nazi leaders and helped the German people quickly transition into a Western bulwark” was one of the main factors that contributed to Nuremberg’s reputation as a success. However, we now know that they didn’t do it. Germans were given two questions in annual opinion polls conducted between 1946 and 1958: Did you believe Hermann Göring and the other Nazis were guilty? Do you believe that the trials of Hermann Göring and the other Nazis were fair? Over a ten-year period, 85–90% of Germans responded negatively to both questions annually.
