'Unprecedented, justified and overdue': No int'l court has indicted a pro-Western leader since WWII

1 year ago

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00:00For more, we can speak to Reed Brody, former New York Assistant Attorney General.

00:04Hello to you and thank you for speaking to Paris Direct.

00:07What was your reaction the first time you saw this news about these arrest warrants being issued?

00:14Well, this is a watershed event in the history of international justice.

00:20You said it's the first time a pro-Western leader has been indicted by the ICC.

00:27In fact, no international court since World War II has done so.

00:37Up until now, the instruments of international justice have almost exclusively been used to

00:45address crimes by defeated adversaries, as in Nuremberg and Tokyo, powerless outcasts like

00:54Africans or opponents of the West, like Vladimir Putin and Slobodan Milosevic.

01:02The world cheered. All the people who are complaining today about the arrest warrants

01:09were cheering last year, two years ago, when this same court indicted Vladimir Putin

01:17for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. So, I don't think you can have,

01:21you know, justice for some and not for others. I think it was unprecedented,

01:29justified, and frankly, overdue.

01:32In the Biden administration calling this outrageous,

01:36on what grounds do you think that they had a legitimate criticism of this or not?

01:42Well, they have two. The main argument by the Biden administration has been that Israel,

01:50like the United States, is not a party to the International Criminal Court.

01:56And therefore, it doesn't have jurisdiction. Now, the rule of the ICC is that it has jurisdiction

02:05over nationals of states, parties, or on the territory of countries that have accepted its

02:12jurisdiction, like Palestine. And interestingly, this was always the position of the US, but when

02:20the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin, who Russia is not a party to the ICC,

02:29but it committed the alleged crimes on the territory of Ukraine, which accepted its

02:34jurisdiction. And so, this argument that you can only bring to justice members of states'

02:44parties falls apart, and we see a double standard. And, you know, when Benjamin Netanyahu

02:52talks about anti-Semitism, first of all, as a Jew, I think he is cheapening the concept of

03:02anti-Semitism to save himself. At a point when Jews around the world need to rally in support

03:11against anti-Semitism, Netanyahu throws us under the bus by equating anti-Semitism

03:19with a judicial warrant over his alleged war crimes. So, you know, I think you can't

03:25just have justice for some and not for others. Yeah. And do you think it will really be justice?

03:32You called it a watershed moment, but the states still have to enforce this ruling. We're getting

03:37various reactions around the EU about consultations about how to do this. Some governments coming out

03:43immediately saying they will uphold it, but there is some deliberation now about whether it will be

03:48upheld. Well, that's right, and that's unfortunate. I mean, the ICC, of course, does not have a police

03:55force. It has to be said that in the 22 years of its existence, it has never been able to actually

04:05capture, prosecute, and convict any state leader anywhere in the world. So, Vladimir Putin is not

04:14being arrested, and Benjamin Netanyahu may not yet be arrested, or they both may not be.

04:22Obviously, the court depends on the cooperation of states' parties, the 124 states that have

04:32ratified the ICC treaty. That's the only strength that the law has. It doesn't have a police force.

04:40If these states say, well, we'll arrest Vladimir Putin if he comes here, but we won't arrest

04:44Benjamin Netanyahu, then I think the whole enterprise falls apart. Most of my own work

04:51in international justice has been in Africa, helping victims to prosecute

04:59abusive leaders. I hear all the time this complaint that, well, it's wonderful that

05:05international justice can go after African leaders, but what about leaders of powerful

05:11countries? If these 124 countries that have ratified the ICC, that have accepted its mandate,

05:20and let's say, well, we're not going to do it because it's a leader we like,

05:25then the entire enterprise of international justice falls apart. We go from the rule of law

05:32to the rule of the jungle. With these warrants, we could see the very

05:38credibility of the court at stake. That's absolutely right. It's interesting. The

05:45prosecutor is a British prosecutor who became ICC prosecutor with the backing of the United States

05:55and Great Britain. There was a lot of feeling that this prosecutor is never going to cross

06:00that red line. He's never going to actually indict an Israeli official. I think the circumstances

06:09made it untenable not to do so. The growing international consensus that Israel is

06:16committing war crimes, the decision by the other court in The Hague, the International Court of

06:22Justice, that said that Israel has a case to answer for genocide. The prosecutor issued these

06:31warrant requests. Three judges, a judge from France, from Slovenia, and a judge from Benin,

06:38unanimously found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli officials,

06:44as well as Hamas, but Israeli officials had engaged in starvation as a weapon of war,

06:51that they had deliberately attacked civilian rather than military targets. To say that this

07:00is biased or this is anti-Semitic, it really turns on its head the entire history of international

07:07justice, which has largely been victor's justice and justice of the West. So it could appear to

07:13isolate Benjamin Netanyahu a bit more internationally. But in that previous report,

07:18we saw there was a fierce reaction domestically against these warrants. Do you think it might buy

07:25Netanyahu more support politically within Israel? Well, I can't speak to that. Obviously,

07:32he's the prime minister, and I think people are rallying around him. And I understand,

07:39again, as a Jew, I understand the idea that Israel has enemies. But you cannot

07:52use self-defense to justify all means of war. Israel has a right to defend its citizens. It

08:00does not have a right to use starvation. It does not have a right to attack civilian objects. It

08:07does not have a right to prevent humanitarian aid from getting in. And so I think what the

08:15decision does, as you say, is it reinforces a global idea, a global consensus that Israel has

08:25gone past the limits that are allowed under international law. Reid, thank you very much

08:30for your time. Reid Brody speaking to us from Paris. Thank you. You're quite welcome.

'Unprecedented, justified and overdue': No int'l court has indicted a pro-Western leader since WWII

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