Thread

ICC judge on what U.S. sanctions mean for her and global courts

229 points · 173 comments · rbanffy

msdz · 1790961668 · focus · HN ↗
Regardless of what one personally thinks about the ICC, this isn’t a good look for neither the US nor Europe.
For the U.S., because sanctioning an “unpleasant”, but in essence harmless individual (geopolitically speaking) is ridiculous. Falling victim to de-banking alone can really ruin one’s life.
And for the EU, because it once again showcases the dependence on U.S. systems for just about anything tech-related in everyday life and work.
1. dmitrygr · 1790963364 · focus · HN ↗
  > Regardless of what one personally thinks about the ICC, this isn’t a good look
  Legitimate question. Why should a third party (whom I do not respect)’s opinion of me matter to me? Do you care what my cat thinks about you?
  1. rwmj · 1790963643 · focus · HN ↗
    Depending on where you live, your country may or may not have decided to give legal force to ICC rulings by joining the Rome Statute treaty (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute). If you live in a democracy, this was decided by democratic means, and can be changed the same way. This is not a unique situation, there will be many, many other treaties that your country has decided to sign up to.
    dmitrygr · 1790963835 · focus · HN ↗
    Luckily my country is not a party. I don’t want my government (that I elect) outsourcing any decision-making power to a body I do not elect (ICC). As a voter this is a hard NO for me.
    buran77 · 1790966036 · focus · HN ↗
    The answer is staring you in the face but I'm not surprised you never bothered even to scratch the surface. The ICC doesn't replace national courts. Actually it encourages them to do their job. But sometimes the national courts can't settle it. For example the biggest point of an international court is that they should be able to settle international disputes. Get it? Inter-national. That's when the two parties are different countries, each with their own elected representatives and their own judges to decide in each country's favor. So what do you do then? You go to an international body which has no intrinsic bias or conflict of interest, ideally.
    I see how you're trying to twist this into an act of "sovereignty" but not signing up is usually a sign that the respective country is a common perpetrator of exactly the type of crime the ICC would convict (war crimes, genocide, that type of thing). And wouldn't you know it, just check out the list ;).
    flyinglizard · 1790966925 · focus · HN ↗
    ICC is trying to get the elected officials in Israel on trial for enacting a defensive policy they think is vital for the country, and overwhelmingly supported by their public.
    tmnvix · 1790967933 · focus · HN ↗
    A 'defensive policy' put into practice in the territory of another state that is a signatory.
    If you commit crimes in another state, expect to be judged according to their system of law (which in this case includes the ICC).
    flyinglizard · 1790968275 · focus · HN ↗
    Is Hamas (which are the only government in Gaza) a signatory of the ICC convention?
    buran77 · 1790973050 · focus · HN ↗
    Good company, eh? The US, Israel, terrorist organization Hamas. That's what you're saying right?
    You know you hit rock bottom when your defense is saying "the terrorist organization also does it". But I have full confidence in you that you will manage to dig yourself even deeper.
    flyinglizard · 1790974784 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm sure Israel would love to have the Swiss as their neighbors but it's Hamas they're dealing with. And it's not a "terrorist organization", in Gaza it is a government that commits terror. The ministry of education or health in Gaza are Hamas. The police are Hamas. The tax collectors are Hamas.
    laimewhisps · 1790975113 · focus · HN ↗
    Israel should have the Swiss for their neighbors but they decided to ethnically cleanse and colonize Palestine instead of creating Israel in Europe where it belongs. Palestinians are fighting for their lives and their land, Israel is fighting to ethnically cleanse the indigenous people off the land they've been living on continuously for thousands of years.
    flyinglizard · 1790982328 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a crazy take on history!
    1. Around half of Israelis are not from Europe, but from Arab countries (Sephardic). Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria etc.
    2. Jews have always lived on this land, for as long as history is recorded. Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem have had continuous Jewish presence for thousands of years.
    3. The land belonged to the British mandate and before to the Ottomans, never a self-governing Palestinian group (which are just Arabs).
    4. Palestinians are not fighting for their lives and land; that has been offered many times before, starting in the 1930s with various plans, then with the British partition plan, then many other times culminating in Oslo accords and later in the Gaza disengagement. They could have had one state, two states, autonomy, whatever they wanted. They refused all of those, because their STATED goal is to completely and thoroughly remove Jews from that land, which is considered holy to Islam (Al Aqsa mosque is built on the ruins of the Jewish temple mount). Now when Islam came into being, around the sixth century, Jews were a few thousand years old already. So think about this when you try to attribute the land to this group or that.
    Throughly fascinating history for those who want to learn it - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwN0K2ZSAoQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwN0K2ZSAoQ
    laimewhisps · 1790982778 · focus · HN ↗
    Palestinians were cleansed off their indigenous land via the Nakba and Zionist aggression since then. I never said all Jews in Palestine are Ashkenazi, I said Israel, the European colony, should be in Europe. Ashkenazis have no genetic ties to Palestine:
    <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3543" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3543
    berschatu · 1791156723 · focus · HN ↗
    > Ashkenazis have no genetic ties to Palestine
    This is a racist line of reasoning. By your logic Arabs have no genetic ties to Europe therefore they should go back to the Middle East.

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