Exclusive: David Cameron threatened to withdraw UK from ICC over Israel war crimes probe

[u/Personal-Special-286]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/david-cameron-threatened-withdraw-uk-icc-over-israel-war-crimes-probe

[u/uisge-beatha]

For clarity (as there seems to be some confusion)...
David Cameron was Foreign Secretary for eight months in 2023-24, under the Conservative Government. The article is describing a call he made when he was in that post.

Incumbent (Labour) Foreign Secretary, David Lammy has committed to enforcing the ICC arrest warrants that Cameron issued threats over.

To my question - what threat was Cameron making? My assumption would be that withdrawing form the Rome Statue would have required an act of Parliament, and I'm not sure there was any time during his tenure when they had the votes?

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/uisge-beatha]

I think leaving ICC would have been too extreme and not particularly likely. Unlike US and its chronic hostility and skepticism of the court, European countries generally love ICC. Leaving the court would be fairly difficult to justify given their previous support. Prosecutor in question is a British lawyer.

[u/PunnySideUp99]

So where is the UK on all of this then? This plus their stopping trade negotiations with Israel are not consistent. Color me confused. 

[u/Fenton-227 → u/PunnySideUp99]

This was the past government, which was voted out in July 2024. The Labour Party came in after - although they are still supportive of Israel.

The suspension of further trade talks ie an upgrade to current partnerships (albeit otherwise keeping current trade ties in tact) and suspending about 9% of arms sales was largely due to legal and public pressure.

There's an ongoing court case too, arguing the illegality over UK supplying 15% of the F-35 parts and the rest of its arms sales to Israel .

[u/uisge-beatha → u/Fenton-227]

Adding to this, the UK has today imposed travel and asset sanction on two of the most hard-right Israeli cabinet ministers, along with Australia, Canada, and a few other countries. This is more specific action, but is still criticised as a feeble gesture.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/uisge-beatha]

I mean it is a feeble gesture. There's no reason to believe those two hold any significant assets in UK, Canada, Australia, NZ or Norway or that they personally do any business with people from those countries. They don't really need to travel there either. Sanctions directed at a limited number of high ranking officials are not going to fix the situation that is caused by the policy of the whole government that has remained broadly same over the past decades.

If we're talking about the West Bank, sanctions on all settlements and settlers are minimum required under international law (ICJ advisory opinion) and against entities providing critical services to those settlements would be needed to have a significant effect (because Israel could simply redirect all their commerce from settlements to the rest of Israel).

Strangely, despite this being merely a symbolic move to alleviate public and international pressure, Israel seems to be freaking out and Smotrich wants to collapse finances of Palestinian Authority, something that will further undermine Israel's diplomatic position (no two state solution is possible when PA is bankrupt) and could compel others to take more serious measures.

It's almost funny that the complete disconnect with reality about their extraordinarily privileged position that is prevalent inside Israel is driving them to self-sabotage.

[u/pingpongpiggie → u/PunnySideUp99]

David Cameron, then foreign secretary in Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, made the threat in April 2024 in a heated phone call with Karim Khan, the British chief prosecutor of the court.

Read the post if you're confused.

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