Tables Are Turned at International Criminal Court

The tables are turned on the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan. The hard-charging prosecutor lacked, in the aftermath of October 7, the moral clarity to distinguish between Israel and Hamas. Mr. Khan sought to convict for war crimes both Hamas leaders and Israeli officials, arguing that “international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all.” Now Mr. Khan himself is suspended amid accusations of sexual abuse.Mr. Khan’s suspension, our Benny Avni reports, is raising questions about the viability of the ICC’s cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant. The charges, Mr. Avni suggests, could be “dismissed as the fruit of the poisonous tree.” The accusations about Mr. Khan raise “serious questions about the circumstances surrounding his shocking decision,” UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer tells Mr. Avni.These concerns center in part, per Mr. Avni, on the timing of accusations arising against Mr. Khan and the prosecutor’s demarche against Israeli officials. Once Mr. Khan learned that a complaint of sexual misconduct was filed against him, in May 2024, he cancelled a fact-finding trip to Israel and rushed to announce on television his legal case against Messrs. Netanyahu and Gallant. He denies wrongdoing, and his lawyers vow to “challenge the decision.”Whether or not the ICC’s cases proceed against Messrs. Netanyahu and Gallant, though, it seems Mr. Khan’s future at the tribunal is questionable. Even the Times moots doubts that he “will be able to perform effectively if he returns to his position.” Human Rights Watch’s Kenneth Roth reckons that “a chief prosecutor needs to be known for the truth.” The ICC averred on Monday that Mr. Khan’s suspension “is not an indication of the final outcome.” It’s hard to avoid the sense, though, that the accusations against Mr. Khan amount to a black eye for the global court and its pretensions to being neutral. This could explain why the ICC is framing its investigation of Mr. Khan as a means of “fostering the dignity, rights and aspirations of the Court’s personnel.” That, per the ICC, is on a par with “pursuing accountability for international crimes through independent and impartial proceedings.”The ICC surely sees that the accusations against Mr. Khan, if vindicated, amount to a blot on the tribunal’s escutcheon. The same is true of the ICC’s failure, under Mr. Khan, to differentiate between Hamas and Israel. A former French minister for European Affairs, Noëlle Lenoir, marked to our Michel Gurfinkiel the hypocrisy on this head of the ICC, which she called “arguably the most inactive and procrastinating court in the world.” Yet the ICC, Ms. Lenoir added, has been “rushing to incriminate Israel, in contradiction to both international law and its own foundational charter, the Rome Statute of 1998” — of which neither Israel or America is a signatory. Contra Mr. Khan, Ms. Lenoir deemed Hamas’ “attack against Israeli civilians on October 7” to be “clearly genocidal under international law,” while Israel’s “military operations in Gaza are clearly a case of self-defense.”Viewed through that lens, the ICC’s preening claim today that the tribunal “is one of the most significant achievements of human civilization” rings all the more hollow. Mr. Khan’s lawyers are calling his suspension “unlawful, procedurally unfair and unsupported by evidence.” As Mr. Khan himself has put it, though, “no foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader — no one — can act with impunity.”

Tables Are Turned at International Criminal Court

Tables Are Turned at International Criminal Court

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