International Criminal Court
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The International Criminal Court sits at The Hague and was created by the Rome Statute. John Kiriakou describes the statute as having made the court "something akin to what we had at Nuremberg after the Second World War where Nazi war criminals were given a fair trial. Some were acquitted and others were convicted, some were executed, some were imprisoned." His view of the principle is unambiguous: "there ought to be an international agreement that when somebody commits war crimes or somebody commits crimes against humanity, that they're dealt with." The precedent he reaches for is Slobodan Milošević, who "died in a prison cell in The Hague. As he should have."

The signatory gap

Neither the United States nor Israel is a party, "And so Netanyahu is free to come and go from the United States as he pleases. And he comes many times a year."

The exposure Kiriakou identifies is accidental rather than deliberate travel, and he sets it out as a chain of obligations: "what happens if he has a medical emergency on a flight? What happens if the plane has engine trouble and it's forced to land in Italy, Austria, Greece, Spain, wherever, Ireland. The leaders of those countries are compelled by treaty to arrest him and to turn him over to the ICC." The American answer to that contingency already exists in statute, see Hague Invasion Act.

"Unelected bureaucrats"

Netanyahu's public objection, made to Sean Hannity, is that the court is "an unelected unelected bureaucracy that sits in The Hague" which could declare American soldiers and even the president war criminals. Kiriakou grants the description and denies that it is an argument: "when Netanyahu talks about unelected bureaucrats, you know, yeah. That's the way the world works. Every country has unelected bureaucrats. That's how governments operate. Who elected the Nuremberg Tribunal? Nobody. They were appointed by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. And it worked. It showed that rule of law is really a thing that needs to be respected."

What the court exists to reach, in his framing, is a policy rather than an incident: "you cannot have your policy be to just go into some place like Gaza or the West Bank and kill everybody. Men, women, children, the elderly. You flatten the hospitals, you flatten the flatten the homes, you flatten the schools, and then whoever survives, you starve them. Those are war crimes and crimes against humanity." He adds that the United States will shield Israel from the consequences but that "most other countries aren't. They aren't going to save you."

The Nuremberg lineage

Kiriakou grounds the court's legitimacy in a precedent rather than in a treaty. Neither the United States nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC and made it "something akin to what we had at Nuremberg after the Second World War, where Nazi war criminals were given a fair trial." He is careful about what that trial produced, "some were acquitted and others were convicted, some were executed, some were imprisoned", and states the principle he takes from it plainly: "there ought to be an international agreement that when somebody commits war crimes or somebody commits crimes against humanity that they're dealt with."

His example of the principle working is Slobodan Milošević, the former Yugoslav leader, who "died in a prison cell in The Hague as he should have."

He answers the charge that the court is run by unelected officials by turning it on the precedent: "Who elected the Nuremberg tribunal? Nobody. They were appointed by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. And it worked." The lesson he draws is that the arrangement "showed that rule of law is really a thing that needs to be respected."

The forced-landing problem

Because neither state recognises the court, Netanyahu travels to the United States freely and often. The exposure Kiriakou identifies is accidental rather than diplomatic: a medical emergency in the air, or engine trouble forcing a landing in Italy, Austria, Greece, Spain or Ireland, where "the leaders of those countries are compelled by treaty to arrest him and to turn him over to the ICC." The American answer to that scenario is the Hague Invasion Act.

See also

- Hague Invasion Act
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Graham,Netanyahu ICC tapes
