ICC undeterred by US sanctions threat
The International Criminal Court said on Tuesday its work would continue undeterred after Washington threatened to prosecute its officials if Americans are charged with war crimes in Afghanistan.
“The ICC, as a court of law, will continue to do its work undeterred, in accordance with those principles and the overarching idea of the rule of law,” the tribunal said.
The Hague-based court’s response comes a day after the US threatened to arrest and sanction court officials should they move to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes.
White House national security adviser John Bolton called the Hague-based rights body unaccountable and outright dangerous to the US, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation.
The US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on court officials if they proceeded against any Americans, he said.
In response, the ICC called itself an independent and impartial judicial institution.
It also stressed that it would only investigate and prosecute crimes when the states would not or could not do so.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians announced a fresh push against Israel at the ICC on Tuesday, a day after the US said it was closing their Washington mission partly over the campaign.
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) secretary-general Saeb Erekat said it had submitted a new complaint over an Israeli “war crime” against a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, expected to be demolished by the Israeli army in the coming days after an Israeli high court ruling that it was built without permits.
The dossier “included a focus on the war crimes facing Khan al-Ahmar, specifically the crimes of forcible displacement, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of civilian property”, Erekat said.
Khan al-Ahmar is in a key location near Jerusalem.
International powers say its demolition could enable Israeli settlement expansion that would eventually cut the West Bank in two, further threatening the prospects of an independent Palestinian state.
The latest submission came a day after the US confirmed it would close the PLO’s office in Washington.
Trump’s administration has also cut more than $500m (R7.5bn) in aid to Palestinians, including to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, since January. –