Arusha, January 17, 2015 (FH) \u2013 International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced Friday she is opening a preliminary examination into possible war crimes committed in Palestine. Israel reacted angrily on Sunday with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman calling on ICC member states to stop funding the Court.<\/p>\n
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Bensouda\u2019s decision follows Palestine\u2019s accession to the ICC\u2019s founding treaty, the Statute of Rome, on January 2. The Palestinian Authority had filed a declaration the previous day accepting ICC jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed \"in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, since June 13, 2014.\"<\/p>\n
The date means the examination may also include alleged crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas in last summer\u2019s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
A preliminary examination is not an investigation, explains Friday\u2019s ICC press release, but rather a process to determine if there is a \u201creasonable basis\u201d to conduct an investigation. Under the Rome Statute, the Prosecutor must consider \u201cissues of jurisdiction, admissibility and the interests of justice in making this determination\u201d. The Rome Statute does not impose any deadline for a decision.<\/p>\n
The office of the ICC Prosecutor has conducted a preliminary examination of the situation in Palestine in the past, after receiving a declaration from the Palestinian Authority on January 22, 2009. It concluded in April 2012 that Palestine\u2019s status at the time as an \u201cobserver entity\u201d at the United Nations meant it could not join the Rome Statute.<\/p>\n
However, in November 2012 the UN recognized Palestine as a \u201cnon-member observer State\u201d. The Palestinian Authorities subsequently began the procedure to join the Rome Statute. The UN Secretary General accepted Palestine\u2019s accession to the Rome Statute on January 6, 2015.<\/p>\n
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday slammed the ICC, saying it was a \u201cpolitical institution\u201d. \u201cWe will lobby our friends in Canada, Australia and Germany to simply stop funding it,\u201d media reports quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
ER\/ JC<\/p>\n
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Arusha, January 17, 2015 (FH) \u2013 International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced Friday she is opening a preliminary examination into possible war crimes committed in Palestine. Israel reacted angrily on Sunday with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman calling on ICC member states to stop funding the Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-24965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n