We are Witnessing a Genocide Unfolding in Gaza: To Stop it, the ICC Prosecutor Must Apply the Law Without Fear or Favour | OpinioJuris - 24 Nov 2024 |

[Ahmed Abofoul is an international lawyer, legal researcher and advocacy officer at Al-Haq, and a research fellow on international law and legal mobilization at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.]

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mr Karim Khan, recently published an op-ed, which read more like a diplomatic cable than a Prosecutorial statement of intent, entitled: "We are witnessing a pandemic of inhumanity: to halt the spread, we must cling to the law." It is not clear to whom Mr Khan is referring when he says `we'. Surely not `we' Palestinians who have clung to the law, by joining the ICC, and who have been `witnessing' and enduring such inhumanity for decades? More likely an appeal to `we' in the eyes of the Prosecutor is to those powerful states and their allies who appear to drop any pretence of clinging to the law in the case of Palestine.

What we are witnessing, more pertinently to Mr Khan's mandate and responsibilities, is a Western-made prevailing climate of impunity especially for powerful states and their allies who continue to behave as if they were above the law. These governments are not interested or willing to "cling to the law". On the contrary, the past months have shown unequivocally that they treat the law as a political tool, a wand, by which they can passionately scold their foes but scandalously refuse to use and prevent others from using it on their allies. It is becoming more evident than ever that we do not live in a post-colonial world, but rather in a neo-colonial and imperialist one.

Taking lies, disinformation and Hasbara talking points at face value makes you complicit in murder of Palestinians ... plea of "Wir haben es nicht gewußt" @Nuremberg Holocaust trials.

'Sapere aude'