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"It is shocking to see a country that considers itself a champion of the rule of law trying to stymie the actions of an independent and impartial tribunal set up by the international community, to thwart accountability."
Four independent United Nations experts on Friday urged United States senators to oppose legislation passed earlier this week in the House of Representatives that would sanction members of the International Criminal Court after the tribunal issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act—introduced by Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.)—passed the House on Thursday with strong bipartisan support. Forty-five Democrats joined all 198 Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, which, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would "impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court (ICC) engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies."
A similar bill was passed by the House earlier this year failed to clear the Democrat-controlled Senate. The upper chamber is now under Republican control.
Responding to the proposal, Margaret Satterthwaite, the U.N. special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; and Ben Saul, special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said in a statement:
It is shocking to see a country that considers itself a champion of the rule of law trying to stymie the actions of an independent and impartial tribunal set up by the international community, to thwart accountability. Threats against the ICC promote a culture of impunity. They make a mockery of the decades-long quest to place law above force and atrocity.
The tireless work of brave legal professionals at the ICC is the main driver for accountability. The work of its prosecutors becomes the foundation upon which our efforts to uphold the integrity of the system of international law is resting. We call upon all state parties to the ICC and on all member states in general, to observe and respect international standards, as it relates to legal professionals working to bring accountability for the most grave international crimes.
Although neither the Israel or the United States is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty underpinning the ICC that's been ratified by 125 nations, Palestine is a signatory to the treaty and crimes committed there by non-signatories can still be prosecuted.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza that experts say is to blame for the rampant starvation, sickness, and deprivation of basic human necessities such as food, water, medicine, and shelter that has resulted in Palestinians, mostly babies and children, dying of preventable causes including malnutrition, disease, and hypothermia.
The warrants were for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as the kidnapping and abuse of Israeli and international hostages.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel's 463-day assault on Gaza has killed more than 46,500 Palestinians in Gaza. However, this could be a vast undercount. A peer-reviewed study published this week by the esteemed British medical journal The Lancetfound that, between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024 alone, more than 64,000 Gazans were killed by Israeli forces.
The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a
genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by numerous nations, most recently Ireland.
The Biden administration and most of Congress oppose the ICC warrants, as does Republican President-elect Donald Trump, whose pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), has threatened a "strong response" to the ICC for its move to bring the Israeli leaders to justice.
The U.N. experts asserted that "international standards provide that lawyers and justice personnel should be able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; and should not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards, and ethics."
"We urge U.S. lawmakers to uphold the rule of law and the independence of judges and lawyers," they added, "and we call on states to respect the court's independence as a judicial institution and protect the independence and impartiality of those who work within the court."
Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemned Israel's destruction of Gaza's healthcare system as "a critical tool of its ongoing genocide."
As Israeli forces stand accused of war crimes during attacks on multiple Gaza hospitals in recent days, Francesca Albanese—the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories—on Monday implored the global medical community to respond by cutting ties with Israel.
"I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel's full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide," Albanese wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Albanese amplified a post by Dr. Rupa Marya—one of the most vocal defenders of Palestinian human rights in the U.S. medical community—calling on Israeli forces to release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.
Abu Safiya, who documented Israel's siege and attack on Kamal Adwan and who reported last week that nearly 50 people including five hospital staff members were killed by an Israel Defense Forces airstrike on a nearby apartment tower, was among dozens of other medical staffers abducted by IDF troops on Saturday.
After besieging and attacking the hospital for weeks, Israeli forces raided the facility and rounded up 240 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel claimed without evidence that Kamal Adwan was being used as a Hamas command center. With the facility shut down and badly damaged, critical patients and their caregivers were forced to evacuate to the nearby Indonesian Hospital.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Saturday published accounts from witnesses to alleged IDF war crimes during the Kamal Adwan raid, including "deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area."
CNNreported Monday that Abu Safiya is believed to be held at Sde Teiman, the notorious prison in Israel's Negev Desert where dozens of detainees have died and former inmates say many others have been tortured and raped. The IDF dubiously claimed that Abu Safiya is "suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative."
On Sunday, Israeli forces also attacked al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, killing seven people, according to Gaza Civil Defense officials. Israel said the strike targeted Hamas militants, without providing further information. Anadolu also reported an IDF artillery attack on the Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said it was "appalled" by the Kamal Adwan raid and called out the "systematic dismantling of the health system" in Gaza by Israeli forces.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus—who on Thursday survived a deadly Israeli airstrike on Sanaa International Airport in Yemen—on Sunday condemned and demanded an end to IDF attacks on Gaza hospitals.
"Hospitals in Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat," Tedros said on X. "We repeat: Stop attacks on hospitals. People in Gaza need access to healthcare. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Cease-fire!"
On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that "repeated hostilities in and around hospitals have obliterated the healthcare system in northern Gaza, putting civilians at an unacceptably grave risk of going without lifesaving care."
"The influx of patients, caregivers, and displaced civilians seeking shelter creates a situation that medical personnel cannot solve," ICRC continued. "The increasingly dangerous situation comes in addition to more than a year of insufficient provision of medical equipment and supplies, fuel, food, and specialized healthcare capacities."
"ICRC reiterates its urgent call for the respect and protection of medical facilities in line with international humanitarian law," the organization added. "This protection is a legal obligation and a moral imperative to preserve human life."
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a massive attack on Israel, at least 45,484 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with nearly 120,000 others wounded or missing, according to local health officials. Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza has also forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened most of the enclave's population. Gaza officials reported five infants, a child, and a nurse have died due to cold temperatures and exposure in recent days.
The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by numerous other countries and rights groups.
Palestine defenders in the international medical community are planning a "call in sick from genocide" global day of action on January 6. Organizers are calling on members of healthcare worker unions to push for a strike, and for doctors and others to organize free clinics that day.
Marya, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco who is currently on paid suspension after questioning whether an incoming student from Israel—where IDF service is near-universal—took part in war crimes in Gaza, posted Monday in support of the day of action.
"It is absolutely essential that when we see any entity, any group, destroying healthcare, and using the destruction of healthcare as a way to accelerate the annihilation of a people, as Israel is doing, it is absolutely urgent that the global medical community calls to stop this," Marya told Common Dreams on Monday.
"And we stop it through demanding an arms embargo, demanding unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza, and demanding the end to all institutional relationships between our medical institutions and Israeli institutions," she continued. "What we need to do right now is to stop the normalization of genocide, enablement, and perpetration in our spaces of healthcare."
"What we're seeing is genocide... accelerated through targeting the people who are supposed to heal," Marya added. "The healthcare system in Gaza has been targeted in order to accelerate the annihilation of the Palestinian people. And if the global healthcare community does not stand up right now, this will be the future of all wars."
Though the U.N. was formed following the atrocities of WWII, now it stands largely useless in its inability to stop similar atrocities in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, and elsewhere.
Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on October 29, the U.N. special rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other U.N. officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance.
“Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathize with the Palestinians?” Albanese said in her statement about the need to “recognize (Israel’s war on Gaza) as a genocide.” “Those of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room,” she added.
Was Albanese too idealistic when she chose to appeal to empathy, which, in her words, represents “the glue that makes us stand united as humanity”?
Now that the Global South is finally rising with its own political, economic, and legal initiatives, it is time for these new bodies to either offer a complete alternative to the U.N. or push for serious and irreversible reforms in the organization.
The answer largely depends on how we wish to define the role being played by the U.N. and its various institutions, whether its global platform was established as a guarantor of peace, or as a political club for those with military might and political power to impose their agendas on the rest of the world?
Albanese is not the first person to express deep frustration with the institutional, let alone the moral, collapse of the U.N., or the inability of the institution to affect any kind of tangible change, especially during times of great crises.
The U.N.’s own Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself had accused the executive branch of the U.N., the Security Council, of being “outdated,” “unfair,” and an “ineffective system.”
“The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today,” he said, referring to “Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine.” Also, although noting that “the U.N. is not the Security Council,” Guterres acknowledged that all U.N. bodies “suffer from the fact that the people look at them and think, ‘Well, but the Security Council has failed us.’”
Some U.N. officials, however, are mainly concerned about how the U.N.’s failure is compromising the standing of the international system, thus whatever remains of their own credibility. But some, like Albanese, are indeed driven by an overriding sense of humanity.
On October 28, 2023, mere weeks after the start of the war, the director of the New York office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights left his post because he could no longer find any room to reconcile between the failure to stop the war in Gaza and the credibility of the institution.
“This will be my last communication to you,” Craig Mokhiber wrote to the U.N. high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk. “Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it,” Mokhiber added.
The phrase “once again” may explain why the U.N. official made his decision to leave shortly after the start of the war. He felt that history was repeating itself, in all its gory details, while the international community remained divided between powerlessness and apathy.
The problem is multilayered, complicated by the fact that U.N. officials and employees do not have the power to alter the very skewed structure of the world’s largest political institution. That power lies in the hands of those who wield political, military, financial, and veto power.
Within that context, countries like Israel can do whatever they want, including outlawing the very U.N. organizations that have been commissioned to uphold international law, as the Israeli Knesset did on October 28 when it passed a law banning UNRWA from conducting “any activity” or providing services in Israel and the occupied territories.
But is there a way out?
Many, especially in the Global South, believe that the U.N. has outlived its usefulness or needs serious reforms.
These assessments are valid, based on this simple maxim: The U.N. was established in 1945 with the main objectives of the “maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of the well-being of the peoples of the world, and international cooperation to these ends.”
Very little of the above commitment has been achieved. In fact, not only has the U.N. failed at that primary mission, but it has become a manifestation of the unequaled distribution of power among its members.
Though the U.N. was formed following the atrocities of WWII, now it stands largely useless in its inability to stop similar atrocities in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, and elsewhere.
In her speech, Albanese pointed out that if the U.N.’s failures continue, its mandate will become even “more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world,” especially during these times of turmoil.
Albanese is right, of course, but considering the irreversible damage that has already taken place, one can hardly find a moral, let alone rational, justification of why the U.N., at least in its current form, should continue to exist.
Now that the Global South is finally rising with its own political, economic, and legal initiatives, it is time for these new bodies to either offer a complete alternative to the U.N. or push for serious and irreversible reforms in the organization.
Either that or the international system will continue to be defined by nothing but apathy and self-interest.