ICC Assembly of States Parties Urged to Decide on Status of Palestine

“In April of this year, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court indicated, in an official statement, that he was not competent to decide whether Palestine is a State such that it can accept the jurisdiction of the ICC under Article 12(3) of the ICC Statute. As a result, the ICC Prosecutor took the view that he could not take any action as a result of the declaration made by the Palestinian National Authority in January 2009, accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes committed on the territory of Palestine... A group of eminent international law scholars have now written to the President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute to urge her to place the question of the Statehood of Palestine, for the purposes of Art. 12(3) of the Rome Statute, on the agenda of the next meeting of the ASP. That meeting will be held in November this year. The letter is as follows…”