What is the ICC and what are its powers? : NPR

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Warrants have also been issued for Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister, and Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, whom Israel says it killed in August.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Kahn requested the arrest warrants in May.

Israel disputes the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, which include “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhuman acts.”

Here’s what the rulings mean and what might happen next.

What is ICC?

Located in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICC was established on 17 July 1998 under The Rome Statutean international treaty, and entered into force in July 2002.

The creation of the ICC grew out of the need for a permanent international court to deal with crimes during acts of war, according to the court. It aims to help “eliminate impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.”

32 cases have been heard before the court, which consists of 18 judges, each from a different country, elected by member states and serving non-renewable 9-year terms..

Its judges have issued 59 arrest warrants, including those for Netanyahu, Gallant and Deif, the ICC says.

In March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in his war against Ukraine. Arrest warrants were also issued for then-Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, along with his son Seif al-Islam Gaddafi and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi in 2011.

Twenty-one people have appeared before the ICC and were held in its detention centre. According to the court, ICC judges have handed down 11 sentences and 4 acquittals. Charges against seven people have been dropped because of their deaths, and 30 people have been rounded up, the ICC says.

The court focuses on four types of crimes

The Court has international jurisdiction over four types of crimes: crimes against humanity, genocide, crimes of aggression and war crimes.

The court does not have its own police agency and relies on the support of other countries to “make arrests, transfer arrested persons to the ICC detention center in The Hague, freeze suspects’ assets and enforce sentences,” the ICC notes.

Under the Rome Statute, ICC member states are obliged to arrest a person who is on their territory and is subject to an arrest warrant.

The ICC has 124 state partiesincluding 33 from Africa, 19 from Eastern Europe and 25 from Western Europe and others such as Canada. The US is not a state party and neither is Israel.

Russia and Ukraine are also not members of the ICC, and Putin has not been arrested.

What happens then? Will Netanyahu be arrested?

The ICC’s arrest warrants are a significant step by the international court in seeking the arrest of a world leader.

“They send a very strong signal against impunity and a very strong signal to all sides to comply with international humanitarian law, international criminal law and above all to protect the rights and safety of civilians,” David Scheffer, former ambassador at large for war crimes issues under the Clinton- administration and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, previously told NPR.

Now that arrest warrants have been issued, it is up to the ICC state parties to enforce the warrants, make the arrests if Netanyahu or others come to their country, and transfer them to the ICC for detention.

Netanyahu and Gallant could “travel to a wide variety of countries in the Middle East without fear of arrest because they are not parties to the Rome Statute,” Scheffer said.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for example, are not members of the ICC.

“Only Jordan is in their neighborhood. And so they still have the flexibility to maneuver diplomatically,” Scheffer said of the Israeli politicians.

If Netanyahu and others do not appear before the ICC or are not arrested, the court says, “legal submissions can be made, but hearings cannot begin.”

While it is unlikely that Netanyahu and Gallant would turn themselves in or be arrested, if either event were to occur they would go through the court’s legal process and potentially be convicted.