Strategic Assessment

The International Criminal Court (ICC), seated in The Hague in the Netherlands, was established by virtue of the 1998 Rome Statute and began functioning in 2002. Its purpose is to prosecute individuals suspected of having committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and in the future, crimes of aggression. Despite its initial support for the idea of the court, Israel harbored concerns that the ICC would serve as an instrument of lawfare that could be used against it. Thus, when an article was inserted into the Rome Statute defining a transfer of the population of an occupying nation to occupied territory as a war crime, even in the absence of force, and thus liable to incriminate Israelis settling in the West Bank, Israel decided not to ratify the statute or become a member of the ICC. But when legal warfare is just as important as war on the physical battlefield, it is critical to know the rulebook even if one refuses to be a player. It is therefore important to be familiar with the ICC and its activities and understand its potential as a key element in the realm of legal warfare between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.