Israel’s Attorney General rules that the ICC in The Hague has no jurisdiction to rule on legality of Israeli ‘settlements’ in Judea, Samaria
Avichai Mandelblit
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has no jurisdiction to rule on the legality of Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria, Israel’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit argues in a new legal opinion.
The Attorney General’s office released a statement Friday afternoon announced that Mandelblit had completed a legal ruling on the ICC’s right to adjudicate matters in Israel, typically at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and its allies.
In his opinion, Mandelblit determined that the ICC has no jurisdiction to rule on matters in Israel – which is not a party to the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court, never having ratified the treaty – because the Palestinian Authority is not a state, and that it has been long established that the final status of the territories under dispute must be settled by negotiations, not criminal proceedings.
The PA, Mandelblit writes, has pushed the court “to rule on political questions which need to be clarified by negotiations, not through criminal cases.”
But, added the Attorney General “only sovereign states can empower the court with authority to judge criminal cases.”
Thus, Mandeblit argues, any actions by the ICC against Israel regarding the Palestinian Authority have no legal force.
Mandelblit published the opinion as the ICC prepares to issue a decision on whether to open criminal investigations into two cases pushed by the Palestinian Authority – the establishment of Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria; and Israeli military actions during the 2014 war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Content retrieved from: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/273438.