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An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

By Francis A. Boyle

The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a “subsidiary organ” under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.

The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine–just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.

The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine–just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel’s other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as “low-hanging fruit” ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria’s defense.

And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III

For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.

Have Your Say: An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal
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2 Responses to “An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal”

robg
Posted: Jan 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

There can be no peace without justice. The belief that everyone in the middle-east can do whatever they want hinders every peace process.

However, why create a new tribunal? The International Criminal Court of the UN has been in place a few years now and can prosecute war crimes in the middle east by all means. The ICTY and ICTR had been created because the ICC had not been in place back in the 90s.

Also, it is more likely that the prosecution of war criminals would be supported by the international community if the terminology “prosecution of war crimes in the Middle East” was chosen over “prosecution of Israeli war crimes.

What do you think?

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Victor S
Posted: Jan 18th, 2009 at 8:11 pm

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel or the occupied territories because Israel is a signatory but not a state party to the ICC, and the occupied territories are not a state and thus also not state parties to the ICC.

The ICTY and the ICTR however are ad hoc tribunals established beyond the rubric of the ICC, and thus a similar ad hoc tribunal could be established covering Israel/Palestine without Israel having to be a state party to the ICC.

The existing ad hoc tribunals were established by the UN Security Council. The UNSC would never establish such a tribunal for Israel/Palestine, as the US would veto such a proposal.

However, the UN General Assembly also has the power to do so under Article 22 of the Charter.

Such a tribunal properly should cover both Israel and the occupied territories. Any war crimes committed by Palestinian actors should be investigated, as indeed should war crimes allegedly committed by anyone. A war crime is a war crime, no matter who perpetrated it.

However, the crimes perpetrated by Israel so manifestly outweigh any that may have been committed by Palestinian actors that such a move would hardly result in some sort of equivalence between the two sides.

Other legal alternatives could be cases brought against Israeli actors in countries recognising universal jurisdiction. Germany, Spain, the UK and Canada do this.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under War & Terrorism News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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