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Friday, 25 July 2014

[AfricaWatch] The International Criminal Court as political theatre (Includes Audio)

 



Submitted by Ann Garrison on Thu, 07/24/2014 - 15:54
KPFA Weekend News, 07.20.2014
International criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder says that Israel probably fears that the Palestine Authority will join the International Criminal Court more than it fears Hamas's rockets, even though the court will not indict Benjamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli official because the U.S. and Israeli militaries are so intertwined.  .  
 
Transcript: 
KPFA Evening News Anchor:  Should Palestine join the International Criminal Court, or the ICC, to make an international point about Israeli war crimes in Gaza?  Early this week it was reported that Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas would sign documents requesting membership in the court on Wednesday, but then the story mysteriously dropped out of the news.  KPFA's Ann Garrison Logo of the international Criminal Court in the Hague spoke to international criminal defense attorney and former National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Peter Erlinder, a legal source who preferred to remain anonymous told KPFA that Mahmood Abbas did not sign documents to request membership in the ICC on Wednesday because he had "succumbed to threats and pressure" from President Obama and other elite allies of the U.S. and Israel. Does this demonstrate that Palestine has something to gain by joining the court, even though Israel has refused to join and accept it's jurisdiction, and said it never will?  
Peter Erlinder: Well, I think that that's entirely possible. The ICC is, like other international bodies, dominated by the major powers and particularly by the United States, so that it's unlikely that any United States ally would ever be called before the court, whether they're a member of the court or not. We know for example that Tony Blair has nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court, even though the UK are members. It's also true that African leaders of course are the only defendants who've been called before the court, but it's only those leaders who are at odds with the US that find themselves before the court. However, as an indication of becoming a sovereign state, the Palestinian Authority has a lot to gain by being recognized as a states party by the ICC and it's a step towards statehood. 
KPFA: It sounds like Israel might have more to fear from Palestine joining the International Criminal Court than from the rockets. 
Peter Erlinder: Well of course, because of the agreement recently,Hammas is not the formal political representative of Gaza anymore, and the Hammas rockets of course will come and go, depending on the state of the conflict. But the political, long run, representation and recognition of the Palestinian state is probably a greater threat, from Israel's standpoint, than the largely ineffectual rockets.
KPFA: OK, let's go back to these prosecutions of Africans, the only people the ICC has prosecuted so far. President Paul Kagame's Rwanda, like the US and Israel, refuses to join the International Criminal Court and accept its jurisdiction. They also maintains very close ties with Israel, and enjoy a similar victim's license, both inside Rwanda and in their neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Could you talk about how impunity and victor's justice granted to Kagame and those surrounding him has discredited the court?
 Peter Erlinder: Well, I think that you and I have talked about this in the past. However, recently, just at the end of last year, one of the leaders of one of the movements supported by Rwanda in the Congo, was brought before the International Criminal Court because of crimes committed on behalf of the Rwandan government. But when he appeared before the court, he suddenly claimed he was Congolese.
The lesson of course is that, if the court prosecutes someone who's known to be associated with a U.S. ally, it becomes very embarrassing to the United States. So this idea that allies of the United States don't get called before the ICC is fairly well established. 

KPFA: And that was international criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder. Earlier this year, Erlinder published The Accidental Genocide, a dissident account of Rwanda's recent history.

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