The ICC’s Prosecutor in the service of Palestinian Lawfare

Abstract

The International Criminal Court has been recently called upon by the Court’s Prosecutor to decide a highly unusual application, to approve its jurisdiction over the State of Israel which has not acceded to its Statute. The Prosecutor asks the Court to apply to Israel a special legal standard, openly discriminating it in comparison with other states. The Prosecutor’s submission consciously deviates from established theories on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in favour of unfounded contentions which were discussed and rejected by mainstream scholarship, supporting her tautological arguments with references to vague, unauthoritative sources. This article demonstrates that the accumulative weight of all these factors points to the conclusion that the Prosecutor’s submission constitutes in fact a sophisticated action in the service of Palestinian Lawfare against Israel rather than a bona fide legal motion. The consequences of this project, should it be endorsed by the Court, might prove devastative to international law and the present world order.