On 7 January 2015, the State of Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (APIC). This means that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the territory of the State of Palestine or by Palestinian nationals can be prosecuted by the international court.
The International Criminal Court is a permanent, treaty-based court, independent of the United Nations system, which was established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, including war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Palestine has deposited their instruments of accession, which were accepted by the President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute which means that crimes committed in the territory of Palestine or by Palestinian nationals, can be the subject of prosecutions at the Court.
The Government of Palestine also accepted ICC jurisdiction since 13 June 2014, by means of a declaration under article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. This was accepted by the ICC Registrar and transferred to the Prosecutor for consideration. This means that the Court has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed as far back as 13 June 2014.
Palestine had previously tried to make such a declaration to grant the ICC jurisdiction for crimes committed in Palestine however it did not at the time have the capacity to make such a declaration because it was not recognised as a state with the capacity to enter into legally binding international agreements. Now, Palestine is a “non-member observer state” at the United Nations having been upgraded from “observer entity” in 2012. This means that Palestine has the capacity to enter into international agreements as a state.
While acceding to the Rome Statute, Palestine lodged the accession documents for nearly twenty other international agreements, mostly on the subject of munitions and international humanitarian law. This follows a similar crop of international agreements in April 2014, where Palestine signed up to twenty treaties covering topics like international relations and human rights, including the Geneva, Vienna and Hague Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
In December the UN Security Council rejected a resolution which called for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine within three years and for the independent State of Palestine to be established within 1967 borders, including West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The resolution failed to reach the requisite nine positive votes out of fifteen in order to be adopted. Eight voted in favour, two against and five abstaining at the Security Council session.
Click here to read a press release from the International Criminal Court.