ICC response a test of leadership

Revelations that reflect possible bias among advisers to the International Criminal Court should not be overlooked by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Reports published in London suggest the need for caution about the mindsets of the legal experts Scottish-born chief prosecutor Karim Khan KC consulted before seeking war crimes charges against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas terrorist leaders.

The panel, as we reported on Tuesday, included British-Lebanese barrister Amal Clooney of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which she founded with her husband, American actor George Clooney. Panel member Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, a barrister and Labour member of the British House of Lords, reportedly warned Israel within weeks of Hamas’s October 7 pogrom that it was overstepping in its response. Cutting off water supplies to Gaza, she reportedly said, was “a war crime”. In November, Danny Friedman KC called for a ceasefire. Another adviser, American-Israeli judge, legal scholar and Holocaust survivor Theodor Meron, 94, a former Israeli diplomat, has been a vocal critic of Israel’s settlement policies since 1967.

In 25 years since its foundation, the ICC has achieved only 10 convictions. The government’s stated “respect” for the court and “the important role it has in upholding international law” is not borne out by results.

After Anthony Albanese’s refusal to offer a coherent position on the ICC’s move, Jim Chalmers and Health Minister Mark Butler showed leadership on Wednesday, rejecting any equivalence between Israel and Hamas – a point the ICC, some of its advisers and DFAT appear to have overlooked. Responses to the ICC’s action have become a test of leadership.