Countries that allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fly over their airspace while en route to the United States have been accused of breaking international law, according to Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur of the UN on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Albanese claimed on Wednesday that the governments of Italy, France, and Greece needed to explain why they allowed Netanyahu to fly over their territory while meeting with US President Donald Trump on Sunday for talks. He is theoretically “obligated to arrest.”
The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), which was established in 2002 by the three countries, has been signed by all three of them. Yoav Gallant, a former Israeli defense minister, and Netanyahu have been on arrest warrants for crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s war against Gaza.
Every political action that violates the international legal order weakens and puts the interests of Greek, Italian, and French citizens at risk. And of course, everyone of us,” Albanese wrote on X.
Albanese responded to a post from human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, who claimed the previous day that the nations had “breached their legal obligations under the [Rome Statute], had “declared their disdain for the victims of genocide, and had demonstrated their disregard for the rule of law.”
Netanyahu’s first trip to the US since the ICC issued the arrest warrant, during which he and Trump discussed the forced displacement of Palestinians amid his country’s ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to meet Trump following his January inauguration by traveling to the US, which is not a member of the Rome Statute.
Then, in Budapest, Netanyahu made a visit to Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban in April, who had accepted his invitation just one day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant and who had withdrawn the country’s ICC membership prior to the arrival of the Israeli leader.
According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Netanyahu then flew to the US for a meeting with Trump, his plane traveling 400 kilometers (248 miles) further than the usual route to avoid the airspace of several nations that might impose an arrest warrant.
If those individuals are located on their own soil, members of the ICC are expected to detain them.
The guidelines don’t always apply in practice. In contrast, despite an ICC warrant against him, South Africa, a court member, did not detain Sudan’s then-leader Omar al-Bashir during a 2017 visit.
Regarding the ICC warrant issued for Netanyahu, the EU countries have diverged.
Source: Aljazeera
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