The International Criminal Court (ICC) must be allowed to operate “without intimidation”, a group of 93 states said in a significant public intervention intended to reinforce support for the judicial body.
The big group of ICC member States committed to defend the institution and “preserve its integrity from any political interference and pressure against the court, its officials, and those cooperating with it”, according to a joint statement.
The statement supporting the ICC was produced by five of the court’s member states – Belgium, Chile, Jordan, Senegal and Slovenia – and is said to have been forwarded to the rest of the court’s state parties last week for approval.
It also comes after the office of the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, warned that it has received “several forms of threats” and hostile intelligence activities that appear to be intended to interfere with and unfairly influence the prosecutor’s work.
Khan said last month that he has submitted applications for arrest warrants against senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity in response to the 7 October attack and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Khan’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Yoav Gallant, marks the first time an ICC prosecutor has taken such action against leaders of a key Western ally.
The move elicited a strong reaction from Israel and its American supporters.
The court and its staff’s display of unity follows the Guardian’s disclosures regarding Israel and its intelligence services’ efforts to disrupt, manipulate, and intimidate the court as part of a nine-year monitoring and espionage program.
the disclosures about Israeli intelligence operations against the court were “really eye-opening for a lot of diplomats” and “made some realise that it’s time to put out some sort of statement from the states that belong to the court responding to what has now come to light”.
However, they stated that the statement was also in response to other recent forms of hostile activity against the ICC, such as a cyber-attack last year, and came at a time when the prosecutor is investigating senior Russian political and military figures accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Long-time ICC observers noted that key Western nations such as Germany, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom had backed the statement, which called on “all states to ensure full cooperation with the court for it to carry out its important mandate”.
They also emphasized the significant number of approving states, noting that prior statements rallying around the court had not received as much support. Other signatories included Australia, South Africa, Spain, Brazil, and Japan.
“This is a unique moment of international solidarity, with 93 ICC states parties standing up for global justice and accountability for mass atrocities,” Danya Chaikel, the International Federation for Human Rights’s representative to the ICC, said.