This weekend the Conservatives have written to Prime Minister
to express their concern over
the Labour government's handling of the ICC.
In a joint letter from MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary,
and MP, Shadow Justice
Secretary, the Conservatives warn the government that the “only
beneficiaries of this decision are Hamas” and call on the Prime
Minister make clear that the Government will not support the
arrest warrants.
The full text of the letter is as follows:
“Dear Sir Keir,
We write to you regarding the International Criminal Court's
(ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for the State of Israel's
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and its former Defence
Minister, Yoav Gallant.
The ICC's decision has no proper basis in international law. The
court was established on the principle of ‘complementarity',
meaning that it was designed to pursue cases in instances where
countries do not have robust and independent judiciaries. That
cannot be said of Israel, which is the only democracy in the
Middle East and possessed of one of the most advanced legal
systems in the world. Indeed, prosecutions on human rights
grounds are regularly heard through Israeli courts and leading
politicians routinely face trial - and indeed have been
imprisoned. In failing to recognise this, the ICC's decision to
issue warrants violates its founding principle and displays clear
judicial overreach. It is hard to escape the conclusion this is
an activist decision, motivated by politics and not the law.
Such concerns are heightened by reports of serious process errors
in the ICC's investigation. It has been suggested that Karim Khan
KC, the Chief Prosecutor, relied upon Hamas sources, and sources
from UN bodies whose employees are affiliated with Hamas. Without
the ICC making public the specific contents of its charges, it is
impossible to scrutinise this. There are deep concerns that his
decision has been rushed through.
The court's handling of the charging decision has caused its
credibility to sink to a new low. In charging Israeli leaders
alongside Hamas, the ICC appeared to draw a moral equivalence
between Israel's war of self-defence and Hamas's barbaric
terrorism. The only beneficiaries of this decision are Hamas and
their terrorist-sponsors, Iran, who are now celebrating this
propaganda coup as a ‘great victory' for Hamas and Hezbollah.
While Israel's democratically elected leaders are pursued by the
ICC, the appalling human rights abuses waged by Iran and China's
leaders continue to be ignored by international bodies and
multilateral institutions.
The White House has ‘fundamentally rejected' the ICC's decision.
Not least because this decision will do nothing to help secure
the release hostages, get more aid into Gaza or deliver a
sustainable end to the conflict.
But, by contrast, the UK Government's response to the decision
has been nonsensical. On Friday, the Home Secretary refused to
say whether Mr Netanyahu would be detained if he travelled to the
UK. This opens the farcical spectre of your Government trying to
sanction the arrest on UK soil of the leader of an ally of the
UK, while you continue a diplomatic charm offensive with the
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
It falls to you to clarify the Government's position - now. The
Government must make clear that it does not support an arrest
warrant being issued which has no proper basis in international
law. If the ICC is to regain any legitimacy, it must act within
legal norms and correct this failure of leadership. The UK should
lead the diplomatic pressure to bring about this urgent
change.
