SomaliNet Forums

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he'll pursue formal U.N. membership at the Security Council, and if rejected there - a near certainty thanks to a promised U.S. veto - he'll turn to the General Assembly.

While only the Security Council can approve full membership, a two-thirds majority of U.N. member states can - and almost certainly would -- vote to upgrade the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine from "entity" to "non-member state."

This may not sound like much, but the key word is "state."

As a recognized state, Palestine would go to other international bodies where the United States wields no veto and request membership or accession to international treaties. Each organization has its own rules for admission, but at each of them General Assembly recognition would strengthen the Palestinians' claims to membership.

The biggest jurisdictional prize cited by Palestinians is the Hague-based ICC, the successor to war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda that was created by the Rome Statute.

...

And that's what frightens Israel.

Israeli generals and defense officials involved in the Gaza war have already canceled trips to international conferences in London and Madrid out of fear they could be served with international arrest warrants there.

"Israelis are afraid of being hauled to The Hague," Malley said.

Israeli newspapers reported last week that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said privately that he fears the Palestinians would also accuse Israeli settlers in the West Bank of violating the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on forced displacement of populations.

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.co ... -ANALYSIS/

The U.N. General Assembly's "recognition of Palestinian statehood would likely bolster the argument that the Palestinian territory is a state for purposes of Article 12 of the Rome Statute," said James Goldston, a former ICC trial attorney and executive director of the Open Society's Justice Initiative."Once the statehood legal hurdle were surmounted -- by no means a sure thing -- the question would arise of how far back jurisdiction attaches."

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/post ... es_a_state

In fact, the International Court of Justice in 2004 issued an advisory opinion, representing the leading legal authority on the subject. In a ruling 14-1, the court held that "the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable in the Palestinian territories which before the 1967 conflict lay to the east of the Green Line and which, during that conflict, were occupied by Israel".

The one dissenting judge was from the US, Thomas Buergenthal. Even in his dissenting judgment, he explained that:

Paragraph 6 of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also does not admit for exceptions on grounds of military or security exigencies. It provides that "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". I agree that this provision applies to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that their existence violates Article 49, paragraph 6. It follows that the segments of the wall being built by Israel to protect the settlements are ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2909478.html

Without prejudice to the application of the Conventions and of this Protocol, grave breaches of these instruments shall be regarded as war crimes.

The_Emperior5 wrote:Voltage but that means they will be an observer state member they will have access to the international criminal court to sue Israeli Criminals similar status to the Vatican.

Colonel wrote:This won't change a thing on the ground, Israel does not respond to international law

Israeli newspapers reported last week that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said privately that he fears the Palestinians would also accuse Israeli settlers in the West Bank of violating the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on forced displacement of populations.

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.co ... -ANALYSIS/