EXPLAINER
Amal Clooney was part of the panel that advised the ICC prosecutor who sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders.
Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), issued a statement on Monday saying he had requested arrest warrants for top leaders of Israel and Hamas, whom his team suspects of committing war crimes and “crimes against humanity” during and since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year in which some 1,140 people died.
Israel's bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has continued for more than seven months since that attack, has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly women and children, and thousands more have been lost and It is feared that they have died under the rubble.
The ICC is seeking arrest warrants for five people: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (also known as Mohamed Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh.
In his statement, Khan praised the panel of experts he had convened to review the evidence and provide legal analysis to support these arrest warrants. He said its members have “an immense reputation in international humanitarian law and international criminal law.”
In an article for the Financial Times, the expert panel collectively wrote that this is not the first time that an international prosecutor has convened such a panel to seek conflict advice and that it is not unusual for a prosecutor to invite outside experts to participate. in a review of the evidence.
Here's a closer look at who the experts on the panel are and what they said in their report to the ICC:
Who were the experts on the ICC panel?
- Sir Adrian Fulford: Retired Lord Justice of Appeal in the United Kingdom, he served as a judge in England and Wales for almost three decades until he retired from the Court of Appeal in 2022, having been a barrister since 1978. He was appointed Queen's Counsel (QC) . – now King's Counsel (KC) since the coronation of King Charles – in 1994. He is currently Chairman of the Security Investigation Appeals Panel, which is a forum within which appellants can challenge a decision to reject or withdraw the investigation of national security in the United Kingdom. He was previously elected as an ICC judge for nine years from 2003 and was also a judge of the High Court of England and Wales. Among his most notable cases, he presided over the sentencing of Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard in 2021.
- Judge Theodor Meron: American-Israeli lawyer and judge who has served on United Nations tribunals involving war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He is also a Visiting Professor at Oxford Law School, an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, a Visiting Fellow at Mansfield College, and a Professor Emeritus at New York University School of Law. Additionally, he is special advisor on international humanitarian law to the ICC prosecutor and is affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Law Institute.
- Amal Clooney: British-Lebanese lawyer and human rights lawyer representing clients before the ICC, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the European Court of Human Rights. He has represented victims of the Yazidi genocide, as well as victims of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Clooney has worked for the freedom of political prisoners and journalists in the past, including WikiLeaks director Julian Assange, and is currently working with award-winning journalist Maria Ressa from the Philippines. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School. Along with her husband, Hollywood actor George Clooney, she founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which provides free legal support to victims of human rights abuses around the world.
Amal Clooney announces the conclusions of the Panel of Experts on International Law, convened by @KarimKhanQC to advise on @IntlCrimCourt requests for arrest warrants for crimes in Israel and Palestine. read it @Financial Times open.
— Clooney Foundation for Justice (@ClooneyFDN) May 20, 2024
- Danny Friedman: A King's Counsel (KC) solicitor at the London-based law firm Matrix Chambers, one of whose founding members was Cherie Blair, wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Friedman currently serves as a temporary judge of the High Court in Northern Ireland. He provides legal advice to individuals, non-governmental organizations and state organizations seeking to comply with human rights and humanitarian law obligations within and outside the United Kingdom. Friedman has special expertise in terrorism and counterterrorism law.
- Baroness Helena Kennedy: She is a Scottish lawyer working at Doughty Street Chambers, London, and director of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. Helena Kennedy is president of Justice, a legal reform think tank. Among her most famous cases, she represented the notorious child murderer, Myra Hindley, during her trial in 1974 after plotting to escape from Holloway Prison.
- Elizabeth Wilmshurst: Distinguished Fellow in International Law at Chatham House, London. She has worked as a visiting professor at University College London. She was deputy legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2003, but resigned when her legal opinion that the invasion of Iraq was illegal without a second UN Security Council resolution was overturned on 20 March of that year. In 2010, she gave evidence at the Iraq Inquiry about the legality of the invasion of Iraq and the advice she had given to the government.
What did the ICC panel conclude about Israel's war in Gaza?
The report says the panel was convened so that experts could “objectively evaluate the material provided to them by the Prosecutor and advise the Prosecutor whether it meets the relevant legal criteria.”
In the report:
- The panel agrees with Khan's assessment that the ICC has jurisdiction over the case since Palestine is a state party under the ICC statute.
- The panel adds that it is aware that investigations into additional offenses are underway and are “expected to lead to additional applications in the future.”
- Experts write that “Hamas is a highly organized non-state armed group,” and the fighting between Israel and Hamas is considered a non-international armed conflict between government forces and one or more armed groups.
- However, the panel points out that there is also an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine because the latter is a State “in accordance with the criteria established in international law.” The panel determines that both Israel and Palestine are “High Contracting Parties” that have ratified the Geneva Convention and that there is a “belligerent occupation by Israel” over “at least a part” of Palestine.
- The panel's assessment concludes that the three Hamas leaders “had a common plan that necessarily involved the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity” and that this plan was systemic against Israel's civilian population. This is based on material provided by Khan and statements from “survivors and eyewitnesses at the scene of six key locations of the attack: Kfar Aza, Holit, the location of the Supernova Music Festival, Be'eri, Nir Oz and Nahal Oz. video material and statements of the authors.”
- The report adds that civilians in Gaza have been depending on Israel for essential survival items even before October 7 due to multiple factors, including Israel's restriction of mobility in Gaza following the 2005 withdrawal plan, according to the which Israel technically withdrew from Gaza and expelled its settlers. .
- Referring to Israeli leaders' use of starvation as a method of warfare, the report says that “parties to an armed conflict should not deliberately impede the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians” and that, following their ground operations in Gaza, “Israel certainly became the occupying power in all or at least substantial parts” of the enclave.
- The panel also adds that, based on the material it has evaluated, it has reason to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant have intentionally targeted civilian populations in Gaza and contributed to the famine.
Whats Next?
A three-judge ICC panel will now make a decision on whether to issue the arrest warrants. Judges usually take two months to make those decisions.
