Roving Periscope: ICC’s warrant against Netanyahu divides the West and its allies

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: The International Criminal Court (ICC)’s arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and human rights violations in Gaza has divided the West and its allies, including members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

While some members of the bloc, led by the US, have junked the warrant, others have supported it, indicating that Netanyahu could be potentially arrested if he visited their countries.

The hot issue has also taken the Group of Seven (G-7) by storm. Its ministers meeting in Italy next week will discuss the matter, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday, saying the issue required further analysis, the media reported on Saturday.

Canada, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Finland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Switzerland are among the 124 ICC member countries that have agreed to enforce the arrest warrants.

However, countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Argentina have announced they will not comply.

A day after Hungary opposed the arrest warrant against Netanyahu on the Gaza issue, the US also supported the Jewish leader but the UK indicated that it “would comply” with the court order and potentially arrest the Israeli Prime Minister if he visited London.

Hungary also invited Netanyahu to formally visit Budapest.

London’s reaction was ambivalent. When asked if Netanyahu would be arrested on UK soil, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson hinted that London would “comply with international laws.”

“The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law,” the spokesman said.

However, when asked specifically whether Netanyahu would be arrested, he said he would not “talk about specific cases.”

Ireland, the UK’s neighbor, however, said that it would arrest him if he visited the country.

Washington also rejected the top international court’s decision to issue warrants. The outgoing US President Joe Biden denounced the ICC’s decision as “outrageous.”

The UK signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in 1998 and ratified it three years later.

The UK’s ICC Act 2001 stipulates that when a government minister receives a request from the ICC for the arrest of an indictee they “shall transmit the request and the documents accompanying it” to an appropriate court, the media reported.

“If the request is accompanied by a warrant of arrest and the appropriate judicial officer is satisfied that the warrant appears to have been issued by the ICC, he shall endorse the warrant for execution in the United Kingdom,” the act adds.

Officials say the act has not yet been used because someone charged by the ICC has never visited Britain.

Netanyahu is the second global leader to ‘receive’ an ICC arrest warrant.

In March 2023, the ICC issued a similar arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin and some of his officials for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Because of this, the Russian leader could not visit South Africa and some other nations, which are signatories to the ICC charter.