The United Kingdom’s newly-elected Labour government has yet to take a position regarding whether it would continue to oppose the legal proceedings against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), a British official said on Monday.
The ICC’s pre-trial chamber is currently weighing the possibility of issuing an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and the issue was raised during British Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s visit to Israel and the West Bank this week.
“The British Foreign Secretary has consistently said in his meetings in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories that the [Labour] government has only recently come to office and currently is working towards agreeing a position,” a British official told The Jerusalem Post.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz raised the issue with Lammy, explaining that it was important for the Labour government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to uphold the previous government’s position on the matter.
Katz stressed to Lammy that Israel is a democratic country committed to the rule of law with an independent legal system, adding that the prosecutor’s request to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders was “scandalous.”
The judges said the court would also accept submissions from other interested parties on the legal issue but set a July 12 deadline for filings.
In light of the British elections, the ICC allowed the UK to submit its legal opinion until July 26.
Israel's International Criminal Court probe
The ICC has had an ongoing investigation into any alleged crimes within its jurisdiction committed on Palestinian territory and by Palestinians on Israeli territory since 2021.
In that year, ICC judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction after the Palestinian authorities signed up to the court in 2015, after being granted United Nations observer state status.
The decision, however, left a ruling on the interpretation of the 1993 Oslo Accords regarding Palestinian jurisdiction over Israeli nationals for a later stage in the proceedings.
The UK’s argument is that Palestinian authorities cannot have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the Oslo Accords, and so it cannot transfer that jurisdiction to the ICC to prosecute Israelis.
Reuters contributed to this report.