THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, said he is pursuing his “responsibilities independently and impartially” after being asked by a group of U.K. lawyers to reconsider a request for arrest warrants against top Israeli officials.
The group UK Lawyers for Israel sent Khan a 25-page letter last week claiming he has violated the code of conduct of the English bar by failing to provide evidence to the pretrial panel of judges considering the applications for warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
Khan, a British barrister, was aware of the letter and his office said he would not “ engage substantially with the allegations” while the request was pending.
“The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC underlines that it will not be improperly influenced by any form of threat and harassment in pursuing its Rome Statute responsibilities independently and impartially,” Khan’s office said in a statement Monday.
Jonathan Turner, of the group UK Lawyers for Israel, said his association had not received a response from Khan and intended to pursue a complaint with the Bar Standards Board.
According to the code of conduct for that board — the oversight body for lawyers in England and Wales — prosecutors are obliged to disclose evidence that may be exculpatory. UK Lawyers for Israel claims Khan has failed to do so, outlining in their letter what they say is clear evidence that neither Netanyahu nor Gallant have violated international law.
Warrant applications are not public, so it is unknown what information Khan has provided to the judges.
Experts say the likelihood is extremely small, but the Bar Standards Board could disbar Khan if the group finds he has violated their code of conduct. That would not have an immediate impact on his role at the ICC.
The court does not require prosecutors to have bar membership, though all three of the ICC’s chief prosecutors have been members of the bar in their home countries. Ultimately, charges of misconduct are considered by the Assembly of States Parties, the court’s oversight organization. An absolute majority of the court’s 124 member states would need to vote in favor of removing Khan from office.
"To me at least, this ‘legal’ filing is part and parcel with bad faith attempts to intimidate and interfere with the work of the prosecutor," Mark Kersten, assistant professor of criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley, told Courthouse News.
Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, had attempted to pressure Khan's predecessor, Fatou Bensouda.
She opened an investigation into supposed war crimes committed in Palestinian territories in 2021 after judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel occupied following the Six-Day War of 1967.
In May, Khan requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and three senior Hamas leaders. The charges against the Israeli leaders center on the use of starvation as a war crime, pointing to the “arbitrary” closing of border crossings and cutting off water and electricity to the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
“The effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known, and have been confirmed by multiple witnesses,” Khan said at the time.
A request for warrants from the prosecutor is put to a pretrial panel of three judges, who consider the evidence and decide if warrants should be issued. This process typically takes around two months.
In an unusual move in July, the pretrial chamber agreed to a request by the government of the United Kingdom to weigh in on whether the court had jurisdiction over Israeli officials. Dozens of advocacy organizations, international legal experts and countries submitted amici curiae filings in August, including UK Lawyers for Israel. The group argues the 1993-95 Oslo Accords prevented the court from prosecuting Israeli officials and the prosecutor was obliged to allow Israel to first investigate any crimes under the principle of complementarity.
Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court in 2002, but Palestine is. The court has the authority to go after those who commit crimes on a member state's territory.
In 2023, the court issued warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of his deputies. The Russian Federation is also not a member, but Ukraine, where the supposed crimes took place, has given the court jurisdiction.
The prosecutor submitted his own response to the filings, urging the judge to move quickly with issuing warrants.
“It is settled law that the court has jurisdiction in this situation,” the prosecutor’s 49-page response said.
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