The ICC is chartered by the Rome Statute, which came into effect in 2002, to which 124 countries are signatories. Although Israel is not a signatory, the State of Palestine, a non-member observer state at the United Nations, has signed. Therefore, the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank, of which the Israeli government has committed a great number. Hamas, of course, is also guilty of a series of war crimes, which the ICC is also deliberating.

Times of India Video: “Big Blow To Netanyahu: ICJ Arrest Warrant Against Israel PM | Top Officials ‘Secret’ Meeting”

The International Criminal Court does not judge governments but rather government officials. Its finding in the spring of 2011 that Moammar Gaddafi was guilty of crimes against humanity for his attempt to crush the peaceful protests that broke out that year paved the way to the UNSC-authorized no-fly zone that doomed Gaddafi’s ability to use fighter jets and helicopter gunships to put down the revolution against him. ICC judgments have therefore sometimes been consequential.

The ICC also indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2009 for crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir was overthrown by a popular revolution in 2019, and in 2020 the provisional government agreed to send him to the Hague for trial. That still has not happened, but this chain of events shows how an ICC indictment can deeply weaken and imperil a leader.

On the other hand, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has thumbed his nose at the court since it indicted him last year. His movements, however, have been affected, since when he travels abroad he risks arrest. He had to cancel a trip to South Africa last summer because Pretoria is an ICC signatory and may have been constrained to arrest him.

Netanyahu engaged in bluster this week against the court, saying its rulings would do nothing to restrain him — which I interpret as an assertion that they would not make him cease committing any crimes for which he was indicted. Netanyahu may in any case go to jail in Israel for corruption, for which he is presently on trial.

That Netanyahu is alarmed at this possible development shows the triumph of the State of Palestine, which was created in 1993 by the Oslo Peace Accords, and formally termed the “Palestine Authority.” The PA has for the past 15 years pursued a strategy of legal action against Israel for repeated violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. First, the state of Palestine sought observer status at the UN, which could be granted by the General Assembly and which could not be blocked by the passionately anti-Palestinian US. Then the state of Palestine signed the Rome Statute and acceded to the International Criminal Court.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over non-signatory states, and so ordinarily would not be able to issue rulings against Israeli officials. But because the state of Palestine gave the ICC jurisdiction in the Palestinian West Bank and in Gaza, it can issue indictments for war crimes committed by Israelis in those occupied territories. It has been a brilliant legal strategy on the part of the Palestine Authority, and potentially far more consequential than the horrid terrorism to which Hamas has resorted. In fact, Hamas officials may well also be indicted soon.

The ICC case against Israeli officials is different from the proceedings brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocide. The ICJ is a judicial body established by the UN to adjudicate disputes between member states.

Defending itself from Iran’s drones and missiles cost the Israelis alone an estimated 4-5 billion shekels ($1.08-1.35billion). This does not include the cost to US citizens of $1 billion in countering Houthi and Iranian missiles and drones targeted at Israel. Israel’s initial limited response on April 19 through a drone attack on a military base in Isfahan leaves room for de-escalation of tension over a full-scale war.

Iran’s first direct attack on Israel hit the Nevatim airbase, a mere 40 miles south of Jerusalem, practically implying an Iranian credible deterrence capability if the potency of the deterrence is questioned. Prospects for a wider conflict in the region involving Russia and China remain, risking an ultimate nuclear exchange that should remain ‘unthinkable.’ Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check. Whilst the war in Gaza and the Lebanon-Israel border continues. Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza, killing over 34000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, with the vast majority women and children, has turned public opinion against Israel. And, Israel’s attempts to destroy UNRWA — the backbone of relief efforts in Gaza — with its slow, meticulous, and often arbitrary inspection of trucks have further complicated aid delivery.

What indelibly marks these events, aside from the military and political calculations and implications for the region, is that they have occurred in violation of provisions of international law, including, but not exclusively, the breach of sovereignty, international humanitarian laws, laws of war,  crimes against humanity, wars of aggression, and according to a preliminary ICJ ruling, possibly the articles of 1948 genocide convention. Israel’s ‘ironclad’ supporter, the United States, is construed, therefore, as an accomplice in the crime of genocide through its arms transfers to Israel, and vetoes in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to end Israel’s almost seven-month-old military operation in Gaza. 

Al Jazeera English Video: “Nearly 200 bodies found in mass grave at hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis”

A closer look at the post-Cold war period since 1990 reveals persistent US violations of international law, generally related to the 75-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The United States has paid a heavy financial and political, and now explicit moral, price for its protection of the state of Israel. But the biggest victim of this ‘special relation’ has been the very foundation of the liberal international order. The United States’ (along with its Western allies in NATO) double-standard views and application of provisions of international law have been detrimental to an orderly global governance, A major culprit for such liberal/illiberal dichotomy in rhetoric and practice is the US blind commitment to the state of Israel.  

The end of the Cold War promised the End of History and the beginning of a ‘New World Order.’ It promised that globalization of trade and finance and the technological revolution in information technology, transportation, and communication means the falsity of a looming ‘Clash of Civilizations.’ 

The United States experienced almost unprecedented economic prosperity in the 1990s and the European allies celebrated the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The Eastern European countries abandoned communism and joined the ranks of capitalist countries and the European Union. China continued with its miraculous economic performance welcomed Western investments and traded and cooperated in the Security Council curtailing the Iranian nuclear program. Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation similarly welcomed privatization. But,   structural adjustment policies resulted in a defunct privatization of state-owned properties, and with inadequate legal and institutional mechanisms to prevent the rise of the new oligarchs and ‘parasitic capitalism.’ 

Ironically, the new world order was to emerge on the ruins of Iraq after the 1990-91 first Persian Gulf war. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 on 29 November 1990 authorized the first UNSC collective security action against an aggressor since the 1950-53 Korean War. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 triggered the first Persian Gulf war, but we also witnessed 30 scud missiles hitting Israel as Saddam Hussein attempted to expand the war and turn it into another Arab-Palestinian-Israeli war. The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) was a bloody confrontation between two Muslim countries with opposing views on Islam, power politics, and what constitutes national interest. Yet, the revolutionary state in Iran saw the liberation of al-Quds (Jerusalem) to follow the liberation of Shia holy sites in Kerbala and Najaf in Iraq. Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and actions have remained steadfast since the advent of the revolution. 

The US Mideast policy immediately after WWII focused primarily on countering communism and securing the flow of cheap oil from the region which demanded dealing with authoritarian Arab regimes fearful of both the threat of communism and radical ideas that may threaten the status quo on the resource power parameters in the state-society relations. Still, the thorny Palestinian issue was two-pronged, and the Arab states fought against and cooperated with Israel to contain Palestinian nationalism. The Arab Israeli wars have always involved competing Arab, Israeli, and Palestinian nationalisms, compounded with inter-Arab states’ political rivalries, sectarianism, and US (and Israeli) interventions during and after the Cold War. Recall, the Arab-Israel-Palestinian wars with such hallmarks, including 1948, 1956, 1967-70, 1973, and 1982-85 (Lebanon) wars.

Regional wars bearing similar traits and related to the wider Palestinian nationalism include the first Persian Gulf War (1990-91), Intifada I (1987-1990), Intifada II (2000-2005), Lebanon (2006), and 15 wars involving Gaza alone since 1948, including the Gazan wars of 2008-09, 2014, 2018-19, and now the ongoing 2023-24 war. No wonder, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the mother of all wars in the region. The conflict over the years has fed the radicalization of politics in the region. The Islamic movements have rallied around the issue of the liberation of Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem) to mobilize popular support in advancing political and religious legitimacy in the absence of a viable democratic rule. The 22 authoritarian Arab states, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Türkiye have also been intimately involved with the Palestinian issue.   

The United States has relied on its hard and soft power to lead a liberal global order since World War II. The Cold War preoccupation with polarity and deterrence based on a doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) complicated the plans for a liberal international system, beginning with the creation of the Bretton-Woods gold-based, fixed-rate exchange system and its institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). The principle behind the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) eventually developed into the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, as the Europeans’ attempts at integration since 1951 progressed into the creation of the European Union in 1993. Other rule-based regional economic integration also appeared in Asia, Africa, South and North America. Contrary to the unstable interwar period that saw the rise of Nazism and Fascism, the post-WWII ‘peaceful’ international system witnessed 51 founding members of the UN in 1945 increase to 193 countries today. 

The United States’ commitment to the security of the state of Israel has been a dominant theme in its Middle Eastern policy since its creation in 1948 but also at the expense of its advocacy for a liberal-based international law and order. The US has over decades dispensed billions of dollars in economic and military aid premising it on Israel as a strategic ally in countering communism, helping the flow of oil, and keeping Arab radicalism at bay. Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding, collecting about $300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance. The US diplomatic coverage of Israel also is unconstructive; the UN data shows it has vetoed dozens of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions critical of Israel, including at least 53 since 1972.

A review of debates in Congress and data analysis also shows, “Members of Congress have consistently debated and passed resolutions in support of Israel and in repudiation of its foes, showing strong bipartisan support for Israel.” The US’s unequivocal support of Israel has seen it prevent resolutions condemning, among others, violence against protesters, illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank built since 1967. The US meanwhile has obliged its NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan in its quest to protect Israel and in support of authoritarian Arab states!

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the ‘mother of all conflicts’ in the MENA region that has intimately influenced or been influenced by Arab nationalism, the Islamic movements, the radicalization of politics, and overall governance in the region. To the neglect of elsewhere in Africa, the Sahel region has experienced five military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon. Whilst, Tunisia, Chad, and Sudan have experienced constitutional coups and widespread violence in the case of Sudan. The US Africa Command since 2008  has been involved in military training of African states to counter the Russian and Chinese military and economic inroads in the Continent.  

The restoration of a global liberal order necessitates a uniform and unbiased application of the expectations, norms, and laws of international law. Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel from Gaza, the world has witnessed the continuing degradation of the norms and laws and the expectations of behavior in the so-called international liberal order. The Israeli overreaction to the Hamas attack resembles the United States’ initial response to the terrorist attack on its soil on September 11, 2001. In that instance, the United States, for the sake of revenge, self-defense, or the restoration of international order, took measures that violated the very norms, laws, and expectations of the international system which Washington had championed for decades. The United States in less than a month began bombing Afghanistan and quickly overthrew the ruling Taliban regime and chased al Qaeda fighters across the border into Pakistan and elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. This story, however, did not end there. The US declared a ‘War on Terror’ resulting in a policy of regime change beginning with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Moammar Qaddafi in Libya, and unsuccessful attempts in Syria and Yemen.  

Estimates of direct civilians killed due to American military intervention totals stand at least 400,000 since 9/11. The number of people killed indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, is estimated at 3.6-3.8 million, though the precise figure remains unknown. This brings the estimated total of direct and indirect deaths to 4.5-4.7 million. Similarly, the Israeli overreaction after the tragic events of October 7, 2023, resulting in 1200 Israelis killed, has already led to 34,000 Palestinian dead, with women and children accounting for the majority, not accounting for thousands injured, maimed, traumatized, and remain unaccounted for. The deadly Israeli assault on Gaza has also led to the death of many journalists, members of the NGOs, and the destruction of hospitals and mosques. 

International law today remains incomplete and in need of drastic structural changes, e.g., a reform of the UNSC membership and power structure, a revisiting of the adjudication power of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) and its ‘compulsory’ jurisdiction, the World Trade’s provisions for labor and environmental protection, and a serious re-commitment to empower UN and its functional agencies with necessary resources. The United States unconditional support for Israel and its lack of attention to the welfare of peoples in the MENA region, as well as elsewhere in the developing world, in pursuit of peace, human security, and good governance, is detrimental to the universal compliance and voluntary adherence to the norms and rules of international law.    

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GAZA CITY, GAZA – NOVEMBER 27: A view of the heavily damaged, collapsed buildings caused by Israeli attacks during the last day of the 4 day humanitarian pause at Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza on November 27, 2023. (Photo by Abdulqader Sabbah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Ineffectiveness of International Law and Peace Institutions

For decades, the Gaza Strip has been a hotbed of conflict and tension. 2.3 million residents (about twice the population of Hawaii) live in this small 41 kilometers (about 25.48 mi) long and between 6- and 12-kilometers wide enclave. Already trapped in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, its inhabitants have endured countless hardships Yet, despite countless resolutions, diplomatic negotiations, and the formation of international bodies dedicated to maintaining peace and security, nothing has changed for the people of Gaza. The international community’s response to the Gaza crisis has been a glaring example of the insufficiency and ineffectiveness of international law and peace and security institutions such as the United Nations. The current humanitarian pause is a mere band aid on a potentially mortal wound.

The United Nations, which is the most important institution established for peace and security after the global horrors of WW II, appears to be powerless when it comes to the Gaza crisis. The countless past resolutions condemning the violence and calling for an end to hostilities have done little to change the situation on the ground. The Israeli government is vowing to start back up its devastating bombardment of the refugees later this week.

Even during the current pause, the delivery of humanitarian aid remains insufficient. Some 500 trucks of aid entered the Strip daily before the current conflict, and less than a hundred per day are entering these days. The people of Gaza, already dealing with the consequences of long campaigns of total war that have put noncombatants in the crosshairs, face additional suffering because of the inability of international institutions to ensure that aid reaches those in desperate need.

The Gaza crisis serves as a reminder of the limitations of international institutions and the pressing need for reform. It is time to question whether the current framework for maintaining international peace and security is equipped to address protracted conflicts in the 21st century. If the United Nations cannot even establish a reliable international aid corridor for one of the most vulnerable populations in the world, how can we expect them to address more complex global crises effectively?

The international community must acknowledge the reality that international human rights law and the United Nations has not lived up to its intended purpose in the Gaza crisis. To be truly effective, international peace and security institutions such as the United Nations must be reevaluated and reformed to meet the demands of the modern world. The suffering of the people of Gaza serves as a grim testament to the inadequacy of the current system. It is time for change, and it is time to address the critical issue of an international aid corridor for Gaza as a starting point for broader reform.

Middle East Eye: David Cameron urges Israel to respect humanitarian law in Gaza”

Time to Revisit United Nations Decision Making Procedure?

As widely acknowledged, the United Nations Security Council bestows veto power upon its five permanent members. There exists a compelling argument for reexamining this veto privilege, particularly in the realm of humanitarian assistance. The United Nations serves as a global organization committed to upholding world peace, security, and facilitation of economic, social, and cultural collaboration among nations. A pressing concern arises when the veto power, wielded by these permanent members, extends its reach to include humanitarian aid decisions, as when the U.S. rejected any call for a ceasefire or the firm establishment of humanitarian corridors. This gives rise to a fundamental question: How can the United Nations effectively pursue its mission to address humanitarian crises and maintain global peace if the deployment of the veto power can impede crucial humanitarian initiatives? Even the overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly in favor of a humanitarian pause was summarily sidelined by the United States.

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KHAN YUNIS, GAZA – NOVEMBER 27: An aerial view of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) tent camp, where hundreds of Gazan families fleeing Israeli attacks are trying to survive their daily lives under limited means and difficult conditions in Khan Yunis, Gaza on November 27, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

It is imperative to contemplate a revision of the Security Council’s decision-making process concerning the enforcement of humanitarian law, with an emphasis on rendering these decisions not just declaratory but also legally binding and coercive. Without binding resolutions, the United Nations’ ability to accomplish its mission is severely hindered, and even changes in the Security Council’s composition would yield a limited impact. Collaborating closely with the International Criminal Court may emerge as one of the most potent steps forward in this context. Enforcing the termination of ongoing atrocities as a prerequisite for achieving justice and lasting peace is a necessary approach to securing global peace and security.

The persistent atrocities in Gaza have evoked significant international outrage and eroded the trust placed in the United Nations, an organization founded on the principles of upholding global peace and security. Given that the UN’s response has so often been inadequate – in Ukraine, Syria and now Gaza — it is incumbent upon the organization to undertake structural reforms aimed at preserving its credibility and realizing its fundamental mission.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A. Khan, a prominent British human rights attorney who was involved in the prosecution of everyone from Slobodan Milosevic to the terrorist group ISIL, was elected in 2021 by 72 votes from the 123 member states of the Rome Statute, having been put forward by the UK.

He explained, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that President Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova bear criminal responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

Khan added,

“Incidents identified by my Office include the deportation of at least hundreds of children taken from orphanages and children’s care homes. Many of these children, we allege, have since been given for adoption in the Russian Federation . . . My Office alleges that these acts, amongst others, demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country. At the time of these deportations, the Ukrainian children were protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Marc Santora and Emma Bubola at the New York Times say that some 2.9 million Ukrainians have relocated to Russia since the latter invaded last year, including 700,000 children. Most of these children just went with their parents. But anywhere from 2,000 to 16,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia and adopted by families there. Ms. Lvova-Belova, Russian commissioner for human rights, has been in charge of this adoption program.

Russia has rejected the ICC ruling on the grounds that Russia is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. The crimes, however, occurred in Occupied Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government has given the ICC the go-ahead to investigate crimes committed in Ukraine. So war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia in Ukraine can be acted on by the Court.

The reference to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention is key to the argument here. That document governs the treatment of occupied populations in wartime. It was intended to prevent the sort of behavior the German National Socialist Party displayed in Poland, which Germany occupied in September 1939. Anywhere between 50,000 and 200,000 Polish children who were seen as having a more “Aryan” than “Slavic” appearance were kidnapped away from their mothers and fathers and sent to Germany for adoption.

Deutsche Welle explains,

“The organized child robbery was part of the Nazi racial policy to turn “racially valuable” children from the annexed parts of western Poland into Germans. The youth welfare offices reported the children whose appearance they considered “Aryan.” Representatives of the health authorities conducted medical examinations of them, filtered out the children with “good blood,” who were then sent to a children’s home where they were forced to learn German and their names were Germanized. Afterwards, the SS-initiated association Lebensborn took responsibility of them, handing over younger children to SS families for adoption, and sending older ones to “German home schools.” Over time, the children became increasingly robbed of their memories and their identity as they became Germanized.”

In order to forestall such actions by future military occupiers, the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates,

SECTION III, ART. 49. — Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

Article 50 goes on to say, “The Occupying Power shall take all necessary steps to facilitate the identification of children and the registration of their parentage. It may not, in any case, change their personal status . . .”

Most of the Fourth Geneva Convention was taken over into the Rome Statute, and Khan has now found the Putin government to be guilty of doing just as the Nazis did, albeit on a far smaller scale (so far).

The reason for which this indictment of Putin is bad news for Israeli leaders such as Binyamin Netanyahu is that they have expelled large numbers of Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied territories, and have transferred children out of the Palestinian West Bank. Montreal attorney Dmitri Lascaris points to such an incident in January 2020.

The ICC swiftly indicted Vladimir Putin for transferring Ukrainian children to Russia.

In January 2020, Israel transferred Palestinian children from a prison in occupied Palestinian territory to a prison in Israel.

Despite decades of abuse by Israel of the rights of Palestinian… https://t.co/aeeklSYY3s pic.twitter.com/yVF2fkNumx

— Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris) March 19, 2023

UNICEF confirms Mr. Lascaris’ account, writing, “According to Israel Prison Services (IPS) data, between January and September 2020 there was a monthly average of 167 Palestinian children in IPS detention from the West Bank including East Jerusalem for alleged security related offences . . . In mid-January, Israeli authorities moved 33 Palestinian child detainees from Ofer prison in the West Bank to Damon prison in northern Israel, increasing the population of minors detained at Damon and the proportion of Palestinian children detained outside the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Removing the children from the occupied territory is a war crime. Unless it was done to save their lives, which it was not, there is no legitimate reason for an Occupier to transfer children out of an occupied territory.

There are even more serious violations of this principle. Human Rights Watch notes, “Israeli authorities refused to register at least 270,000 Palestinians who were outside the West Bank and Gaza when the occupation began in 1967 and revoked the residency of nearly 250,000, mostly for being abroad for too long between 1967 and 1994.”

Minors typically account for about a third of any population, so Israel may have revoked the residency of as many as 83,000 children in the Palestinian West Bank from 1967 to 1994. While the Israelis have not sought to adopt Palestinian children, removing them from an occupied territory is in itself a war crime.

The ICC has decided it has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian West Bank. They will only consider war crimes committed since 2014. Not only has Israel removed minors from the Palestinian West Bank in defiance of international law but it has also sent in hundreds of thousands of squatters to squat on Palestinian-owned land.

Although Palestinian human rights organizations are upset that the ICC indicted Putin relatively quickly, while Israel’s crimes in the Palestinian West Bank have gone on with impunity, the rapidity with which Mr. Khan has moved on Russian crimes is a sign that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may well be next.

After a deadly attack that killed seven people outside an East Jerusalem synagogue, the Israeli government responded by sealing off the home of the Palestinian suspect in preparation for its destruction. The family home of a 13-year-old accused in a separate East Jerusalem shooting has likewise been earmarked for destruction.

This is not unusual. Israel has demolished the homes of thousands of Palestinians in recent years. Bulldozing properties of those deemed responsible for violent acts against Israeli citizens or to deter such acts has long been government policy.

But it is also illegal under international law. As an expert on international humanitarian law, I know that holding the family of assailants responsible for their acts – no matter how heinous the crime – falls under what is know as collective punishment. And for the past 70-plus years, international law has been unequivocal: Collective punishment is strictly prohibited in nearly all circumstances. Yet, when it comes to the demolition of Palestinian homes, international bodies have been unable to enforce the ban.

Not necessary, not legal

Rules governing how occupying powers can treat civilians are covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention – one of four treaties adopted after the end of World War II, largely as a response to the horrific excesses of Japanese and German occupying armies.

Article 33 of the 1949 convention states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” It adds: “Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”

Since Israel is an occupying power in the eyes of the the United Nations, as well as under the terms of both the Fourth Geneva Convention and the earlier 1907 Hague Convention, then Palestinian civilians under Israeli occupation would fall under the “protected persons” designation of the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva Conventions reiterate their position on protected persons further in Article 53: “Any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons […] is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

That slight caveat would apply to instances in which, for example, an armed resistance group used a home belonging to a protected person to fire at an occupying power’s army. But clearly that is not the case in the deliberate destruction of a home belonging to an assailant who launched an attack elsewhere.

Collective punishment is banned not only by the instruments of international humanitarian law, but also by human rights conventions that apply during peacetime and armed conflicts, including occupation.

And such prohibitions are not a quirk of international law – they are common to almost all major legal systems in the world.

A narrow reading

Given how clear the international laws are, the question arises: How does Israel square the practice of punitive home destruction with international law?

The answer is not very well, in the opinion of most international humanitarian law experts and human rights observers.

Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1951. But successive Israeli governments have claimed that its protections do not apply to those living in Palestinian territories, the status of which it disputes.

Other arguments put forward by the Israeli government in defense of the demolitions include that they affect only the properties of individuals engaged in terrorism, and that the aim is deterrence, not punishment.

But as early as 1968, Theodor Meron, a legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned that in his opinion the destruction of homes of terror suspects in the occupied territories contravened the Geneva Conventions. In a top-secret document, Meron rejected a “narrow, literal” interpretation of international law in regards the destruction of homes.

UN hamstrung by US veto power

The United Nations has long condemned the destruction of Palestinian homes, with the body’s special rapporteur Michael Lynk repeatedly pointing out that collective punishment violates international law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed such condemnation by the United Nations, claiming that the body shows “anti-Israeli” bias.

Either way, the United Nations is not in a strong position to take action. The U.N.‘s Security Council is the one international body that can take effective measures to censure and take coercive action against member states. But the U.S. has long vetoed resolutions critical of its ally, Israel. Washington is also unlikely to assert unilateral pressure on Israel to end its practice of home demolitions under its current policy. The International Criminal Court ruled in 2021 that it had jurisdiction over territories occupied by Israel, but any investigation would be likely hampered by the noncooperation of the Israeli government, which refuses to acknowledge the court’s authority.

As a result, despite the destruction of the homes being against the letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions, there is little that can stop the Israeli government from doing so.

Robert Goldman, Professor of Law, American University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In framing the struggle as one to safeguard liberty and “international law,” President Zelensky appealed to settled norms, and this is correct.

Human Rights Watch reviewed the international law of occupation and armed conflict, and it notes that stunts like Putin’s annexation of provinces of East Ukraine are irrelevant to the law:

“Irrespective of any self-proclaimed label, under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, Russian troops in Ukraine are an occupying force. The situation in eastern Ukraine… would fall within the meaning of occupation in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 . . .”

One of the primary considerations in the law of military occupations is the need to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants:

“Foremost is the rule that parties to a conflict must distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Civilians may never be the deliberate target of attacks… [P]arties to the conflict are required to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects and not to conduct attacks that fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or would cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population.

Mr. Zelensky referred to the Russian failure to make this distinction, with its attacks on civilian targets:

“If your Patriots stop the Russian terror against our cities, it will let Ukrainian patriots work to the full to defend our freedom. When Russia — when Russia cannot reach our cities by its artillery, it tries to destroy them with missile attacks. More than that, Russia found an ally in this — in this genocidal policy: Iran. Iranian deadly drones sent to Russia in hundreds — in hundreds became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other.”

What is wrong with indiscriminate Russian artillery, missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities is precisely that it makes no distinction between military targets and noncombatants. HRW points out, “Direct attacks against civilian objects—such as homes, apartments and businesses, places of worship, hospitals, schools, and cultural monuments—- are prohibited unless they are being used for military purposes and thus become military objectives… The laws of war also prohibit indiscriminate attacks. Indiscriminate attacks are those that strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”

International law seldom has much teeth, and only has a few tribunals where it can be adjudicated. It is often aspirational. Mr. Zelensky joined in the aspiration, however. He said, “The restoration of international legal order is our joint task. We need peace, yes. Ukraine has already offered proposals, which I just discussed with President Biden, our peace formula.”

But if those are the grounds of the struggle, they have to be universal. Otherwise, the campaign is not based on principle but mere Great Power rivalry. In that case there would be no moral difference between Russia and the United States on Ukraine– it would just be a bone that two big dogs are fighting over.

In 1967, Israeli generals, having worked for over a decade toward this goal, occupied the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel and Syria were at war, so the initial Israel occupation was not illegal. But the international law concerning occupation envisions it as only lasting for the duration of the conflict. By virtue of having continued for 55 years, the Israeli occupation has become illegal. The occupying power is forbidden to bring its own citizens into the occupied territory and settle them on it, as Israel has done with the Golan. It is forbidden to alter the life ways of the local inhabitants, which Israel has done. Above all, it is forbidden to annex the occupied territory to itself permanently, which the Israeli Knesset or parliament has done.

Israel has no legitimate claim to the Golan Heights. No international body ever granted Syrian territory to Israel. Syria owned the Golan Heights when it was recognized in 1945 as one of the original members of the United Nations, and Israel sat in the UN with Syria, thereby recognizing it within its borders. The United Nations charter forbids the acquisition of territory by one state from another through warfare.

The final arbiter of international affairs is the UN Security Council, which passed Resolution 497 on this issue:

“Resolution 497 (1981) of 17 December 1981

The Security Council, Having considered the letter of 14 December 1981 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic contained in document SI 14 791 .

” Reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the principles of international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, I. Decides that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect; 2. Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, should rescind forthwith its decision; 3. Determines that all the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949,” continue to apply to the Syrian territory occupied by Israel since June 1967.”

The annexation of parts of Ukraine by Russia’s Vladimir Putin that Mr. Zelensky and the Biden administration decried is no different from the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.

Yet the United States did not in 1981 invite Hafez al-Assad, the then president of Syria, to address Congress. Not only has the U.S. done nothing practical to get Israel out of Syria, it has actually condoned Israeli actions there. The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad may be odious, but governments come and go, and all Syrian governments insist on the integrity of the country. International law doesn’t stop applying just because an s.o.b. comes to power in a place where it is violated.

Donald Trump recognized the illegal annexation. President Biden has declined to rescind Trump’s recognition.

The same things could be said for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and of the Gaza Strip.

What is the reason for which the U.S. acts in this lawless way in the Middle East? Is it about whiteness? Are Ukrainians more deserving of the application of international law because they are white, while the Syrians are coded as “brown?” Is it about Christian nationalism, so that Muslims are excluded? But surely it is Putin who is invoking Christian nationalism? And by the way, Syrians were recognized as “white” in US immigration law, so even racism wouldn’t justify the double standard.

Virtually no country in Africa, Asia or the Middle East has rallied to Biden’s cause of defending Ukraine. The lack of enthusiasm has many roots, but one of them is a strong sense that the U.S. is not principled on this issue and is merely pursuing a narrow national interest. They do not see Washington as actually upholding a rules-based international order. And they are correct in this assessment.

Last February, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it has jurisdiction over Gaza, Occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem. The office of the Prosecutor, the announcement said, the “Government of Palestine” has accepted the Rome Statute, which established the Court over two decades earlier. This means the Government of Palestine is now an ICC member accepting, in principle, its jurisdiction.

This important development came seven years after the Palestinian Authority first asked the Court to investigate crimes “in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 13 June, 2014″. In comparison, it took only six days for the same Court to start investigating Russia for the alleged crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine. The comparison here begs the question:  “How far is the ICC prepared to go, and how long will it take to produce any results on Palestine?”

Honestly and pragmatically very little is expected from any investigation and it is likely the ICC will face pressure to shelve any criminal indictments against any Israeli military and political officials. It is almost certain that any investigation into any specific Israeli brutality in Palestine, like the last war on Gaza in 2014, will lead to top Israeli officials as it follows the chain of command.

Since Israel and its protector, the United States, are not members of the ICC and both refuse to accept or even recognise its jurisdiction, any investigation – let alone indictment – will not be easy. Israel has a long track record of flouting and breaking international law, and doing it again is no problem.

Photo by Roman Boed via PxHere

The Palestinians, as the underdogs, know this fact only too well, yet they have resisted all pressures and threats from Israel and the US not to press ahead with their application to join the ICC. And, despite the obstacles and delays, the very idea that the ICC will investigate Israel is really a big victory for Palestinians and their supporters.

This is the first time in the last seven decades Israel finds itself, legally, morally and politically cornered. Since its creation, as an independent State in 1948, Israel has never been forced to respond, let alone pay the price for its apartheid practices and daily killing of Palestinians.

This explains the Israeli fury at every level and the pressure and threats applied by its financier, the US, on the Palestinian side to forget about the ICC. As recently as last month, the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, said that Israel “will not allow investigations by foreign parties” into the conduct of its army and security forces accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Furious Israel has already rebuffed its American ally when Washington announced that its Justice Department has opened investigations into the murder of Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, last May. Israel’s Defence Minister described the decision as “a grave mistake”.  Last September, four months after Shireen’s murder, the Israeli Army admitted that one of its soldiers fired the fatal bullet. Just yesterday, Al-Jazeera network, Abu Akleh’s employer, submitted a dossier asking the ICC to investigate the murder.

Any ICC investigation is likely to include the ever expanding Israeli so called “settlements” which are spiralling to become outpost colonies intended to steal more Palestinian land, eventually annexing and incorporating it into Israel. All settlements are illegal under international law and Israel knows this, but continues to build more every year.

If Israel is rescued from the ICC, which is difficult but not impossible, it will be harder for Tel Aviv to escape the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or World Court, as it is known. In another legal and political blow to Israel and, with the support of the majority of UN member States, Palestine has scored another important victory on the international legal arena. 98 countries supported the UN’s General Assembly’s Decolonisation Committee, also known as Fourth Committee, resolution asking the ICJ to weigh in on the issue of Occupation. Only 17 States voted against the Resolution when it landed in the Assembly. That Resolution, passed on 10 November, asks the World Court if the continued Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is effectively, annexation, given its long nature, rather than temporary Occupation. It would be scandalous if the ICJ says otherwise.

Indeed, the ICJ is powerless when it comes to enforcing its decisions, just like the ICC. Regardless of what the World Court will decide, and when, the idea of asking its opinion ultimately throws a spotlight on the entire Israeli Occupation from a legal point of view. Not only that, but any judgement is likely to touch on Occupation-related issues, such as the inhumane treatment the Palestinians endure at the hands of the Israeli army, land confiscations and home demolition practices. Israel will certainly reject and condemn any ICJ decision, as it has already done so before. The Court, in 2014 judgement, found the Israeli Wall, built on Palestinian land, and all its “associated regime create a ‘fait accompli’ on the ground that could well become permanent”, i.e. illegal!

Any decision by the ICC and the World Court might have little benefits for the Palestinians; nonetheless, winning the legal and PR battle against Israel is very important. Such decisions also exposes Israel’s decades-old lie that its army, reinforcing the Occupation, is operating to the highest professional standards, while the reality is the exact opposite.

The entire Israeli army and security forces have, over the years, violated every international law and norm, including the Geneva Convention dealing with the protection of persons under Occupation. It has never respected any UN Security Council resolution and usually does not abide by its obligations as an occupying power to respect human rights, preserve the topography and demographics of the land under its Occupation. Even changing street names is a violation of those obligations.

While the crimes committed by Israel, its soldiers and army of settlers are proven beyond any reasonable doubt, having international legal organisations such as the ICJ and ICC pronounce it has the effect of focusing the international legal community on the matter, after decades of neglect.

Also, to focus public opinion on Palestine, Algeria is leading new efforts to have Palestine become a full UN member as decided by the Arab summit held in Algiers last month. Palestine is a non-voting UN member now.

Neither the ICJ nor the ICC is expected to hold Israel accountable any time soon. However, the Palestinian struggle is a long and painful incremental process, where every little step counts in an unjust world. Raising legal questions about the legitimacy of Israel’s Occupation is overdue, and now is the time for the world to ask such questions.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

In March 2020, following a years-long preliminary inquiry, ICC judges authorized the prosecutor’s office to begin an investigation. However, the investigation was paused one month later when the former Afghan government asked the court to defer to the government’s own investigations. Citing the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, in September 2021 requested permission from the court’s judges to resume an investigation.

“The ICC offers a rare opportunity to advance justice in a country where accountability is completely absent,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This investigation needs to address serious crimes by all sides to the conflict, including US forces, to bring justice even when the most powerful nations are involved.”

As the ICC is a court of last resort, the ICC prosecutor can only override a deferral request like the one made by the former Afghan government if the judges agree that the government is not in fact willing or able to investigate the same crimes. The ICC judges’ decision took more than a year following the prosecutor’s initial request, and included a limited process to consider the views of victims. The judges considered it critical to determine who represented Afghanistan under the Taliban government and to take steps to give those authorities an opportunity to be heard. In allowing the prosecution to resume its investigations, the judges considered that Afghanistan is not presently carrying out genuine investigations that would justify a deferral and that the current authorities are not showing an interest in pursuing the deferral request the former government had submitted in 2020.

The investigation covers serious crimes committed in the country since May 2003, when Afghanistan first joined the ICC. The crimes within the court’s jurisdiction include alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes by the Taliban and affiliated forces and Afghan National Security Forces. The mandate also includes alleged crimes in other ICC member countries since July 1, 2002, that have a nexus to the ongoing armed conflict and are sufficiently linked to the situation in Afghanistan. So, it also would include such alleged crimes by the US armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) both in Afghanistan and in clandestine CIA detention facilities in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania, all ICC members.

In announcing his request to resume the investigation in September 2021, the ICC prosecutor indicated that any investigation would focus on alleged crimes by the Taliban and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), an ISIS-affiliated group, while deprioritizing alleged crimes by Afghan security forces and US personnel. Victims of abuses, Human Rights Watch, and other nongovernmental organizations criticized this decision for creating a double standard. Despite the ICC prosecutor’s public statement, the court’s authorization to resume the investigation “relates to all alleged crimes and actors.”

Human Rights Watch research found numerous violations of international humanitarian law by Afghan government forces, and has documented torture and ill-treatment of detainees by the United States military and CIA since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Human Rights Watch also found that CIA-backed Afghan forces committed summary executions and other serious abuses with impunity in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban takeover. The US government during the Trump administration threatened the court with retaliatory measures over a potential Afghanistan investigation and imposed sanctions on then-ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior court official, an action that the Biden administration later repealed.

Given the near complete lack of accountability for alleged crimes by US and Afghan forces, the ICC prosecutor should reconsider his decision to deprioritize these lines of inquiry and reaffirm his mandate to address the most serious abuses by all parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch also documented many grave crimes by the Taliban and the Islamic State group that should be investigated. Taliban forces have carried out unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, and other serious abuses, predominantly targeting former government security forces and officials, and journalists, including many women. Taliban security forces have also arbitrarily detained and tortured and have imposed collective punishments on residents in Panjshir and other provinces whom they have accused of association with opposition groups.

ISKP forces have claimed responsibility for scores of unlawful attacks, primarily on Hazara and Shia communities, as well as other religious minorities, killing at least 1,500 civilians and injuring thousands more. These patterns of attacks have been devastating for the Hazara and Shia communities, including due to the longstanding impunity for these abuses under the previous Afghan and Taliban governments.

In addition, the Taliban takeover led to a return of sweeping rights-violating policies targeting women and girls, including the closure of almost all girls’ secondary schools in a de facto ban plus other restrictions on education, movement, expression, and women’s removal from the work force. The Taliban have beaten, detained, and tortured women who took part in protests seeking their rights. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are also being attacked. The ICC’s Rome Statute includes as a crime against humanity the persecution of any identifiable group, including on the basis of gender. The Office of the Prosecutor is developing a new policy initiative to advance accountability for gender-based persecution.

The ICC investigation will continue to face numerous difficulties, Human Rights Watch said. A fraught security environment, in which the Taliban frequently threaten and intimidate people who speak against them, and a difficult political landscape for justice in Afghanistan highlight both the need for an ICC investigation and the problems the court may face in gathering evidence. The ICC lacks a police force, so it must rely on ICC member states, notably Afghanistan in this instance, to cooperate with the court in investigations, arrests, and prosecutions.

The humanitarian and economic crisis in Afghanistan, which has caused thousands of Afghans to flee the country, may create opportunities to interview some victims and witnesses in other countries. The ICC should also coordinate with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Office of the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, both of which should support the ICC’s efforts to deliver justice to victims of crimes and their families.

“The ICC’s work in Afghanistan remains vital for justice to the victims of terrible crimes, including women and girls, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people,” Gossman said. “Continued impunity in the country’s decades-long conflict will only further the instability, corruption, discrimination, and recurrence of violence that the Afghan people have long endured.”

“The Wagner Group added to the deadly legacy of mines and booby traps scattered across Tripoli’s suburbs that has made it dangerous for people to return to their homes,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “A credible and transparent international inquiry is needed to ensure justice for the many civilians and deminers unlawfully killed and maimed by these weapons.”

Antipersonnel landmines, which are designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity, or contact of a person, violate international humanitarian law because they cannot discriminate between civilians and combatants. These victim-activated weapons kill and maim long after conflicts end.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), mandated since 2011 to investigate war crimes and other grave crimes in Libya, should examine the role of Libyan and foreign armed groups in laying antipersonnel mines during the 2019-2020 conflict. During his briefing to the United Nations Security Council in April 2022, the prosecutor reiterated that his office would make the Libya investigation a priority.

In August 2021, the BBC reported receiving an electronic tablet that had been left behind on the front lines in southern Tripoli and that they concluded belonged to a Wagner Group operative. The detailed information in the tablet suggests Wagner operatives played a role in placing antipersonnel landmines, the BBC said.

During a March visit to Tripoli, Human Rights Watch collected information from mine action groups that confirms that all 35 locations identified in the tablet were in fact mined, and that the Wagner Group was present in the mined areas at the time. Human Rights Watch also documented the deaths of three deminers attempting to dismantle some of these mines. The deminers did not have access to the tablet or the information contained in it.

Human Rights Watch met with demining agencies and groups responsible for surveying and clearing Tripoli’s southern suburbs. These included the Defense Ministry’s Libyan Mine Action Center (LibMAC), which coordinates demining efforts of humanitarian groups on behalf of the government, Libyan and foreign civic groups including Free Fields, and demining specialists from the Ministry of Interior’s Criminal Investigations Department.

The demining agencies and deminers provided Human Rights Watch with information that confirmed the BBC’s findings on the tablet and that indicates that these mines were not just known to the Wagner Group, but that they were most likely responsible for placing them. A mine clearance specialist, who was present when two of the three deminers were killed, said that they were dismantling a mine placed under a sofa at the time. The specialist said that after the data from the tablet was shared, he was among the team tasked with clearing the explosives in eight of the 35 locations. He was able to use the precise coordinates identified in the tablet and in some cases information regarding the types of mines used in these locations, to assist in this clearance work.

The specialist said he found mines or other explosive devices at all eight locations he was tasked with clearing. He said in some cases they still needed to be dismantled, while in others the explosives had already gone off. He also showed Human Rights Watch images of scraps of paper in Russian that he found during his clearance work in southern Tripoli in houses and other locations controlled by Hiftar-allied forces before their withdrawal. The papers include lists of names and apparent schedules for shifts, lists of injured personnel, and lists with locations or coordinates, including one labeled “enemy.”

The mines and booby traps found at the 35 coordinates were hidden inside homes and other structures, in some cases inside furniture and were often activated with a tripwire that was not visible. Mine experts told Human Rights Watch that the mines and booby traps apparently constructed by Wagner operatives were more sophisticated and lethal than those laid by Libyan, Sudanese, or Syrian groups.

According to LibMAC, of the 130 people killed and 196 injured in Libya between May 2020 and March 2022 by mines and other explosive ordnance, most were civilians in Tripoli’s southern suburbs. The victims were between 4 and 70 years old, and included 299 men and boys, and 26 women and girls. The sex of one victim is unclear. A total of 78 casualties – 24 percent of the total recorded by LibMAC – were deminers.

Mine action groups said that by June 2020, when Hiftar’s LAAF and allied forces including Wagner operatives withdrew from southern Tripoli suburbs after 14 months of fighting against groups allied with the former Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), they left behind many landmines and booby traps. These included at least four types of landmines that the mine action groups had not documented in Libya prior to this conflict, along with other victim-activated improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In addition, unexploded or abandoned ordnance contaminate some 720 million square meters (720 km²) in this area following the fighting.

On May 24, Human Rights Watch wrote to Russia’s foreign minister to present the organization’s findings and request information relating to the presence of Wagner Group operatives in Libya. Human Rights Watch asked the Foreign Ministry to clarify the military security contractor’s role during the 2019-2020 conflict and affiliations with the LAAF, and for a response to allegations that Wagner Group operatives placed banned antipersonnel mines in the southern Tripoli suburbs. The Russian authorities have not replied.

Human Rights Watch attempted to find contact information for the Wagner Group or its management to share the report findings, but was unable to do so.

All parties to Libya’s armed conflicts are obligated to abide by the laws of war, which prohibit the use of weapons such as antipersonnel mines and booby traps that cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty further prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of antipersonnel mines. The treaty also prohibits improvised victim-activated devices, including those made locally.

Libya should ratify the Mine Ban Treaty and commit to a comprehensive prohibition of use of antipersonnel mines, promote humanitarian mine action, and assist survivors, Human Rights Watch said. Libya should also grant access for a country visit to the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, pending since at least 2018, to enable it to get firsthand information on the impact of foreign fighters in Libya and identify challenges.

“Independent of an international inquiry, Libyan courts need to impartially investigate and appropriately prosecute commanders and fighters – including foreigners – for war crimes in Libya,” Fakih said.

Human Rights Watch is co-founder and chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 1997 Nobel Peace Co-Laureate.

Landmine Use and Demining in the 2019-2020 Conflict

The UN Libya Panel of Experts affirmed in a March 2021 report that private military operatives from the Wagner Group have been present in Libya since October 2018, assisting in the repair of military vehicles and participating in combat operations as well as extensive social media campaigns designed to support Hiftar and his ground operations known as “influence operations.” The Panel of Experts estimated that 800 to 1,200 Wagner Group operatives backed Hiftar’s forces in different observation, advisory, force protection, and combat roles. According to news reports, 200 Wagner Group operatives withdrew from Libya in April 2022.

The Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya (FFM), established by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2020 with a mandate to investigate violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed in the country since 2016, found in its October 2021 report that the LAAF and the Wagner Group “may have violated the international humanitarian law principle of proportionality as well as the customary international humanitarian law obligations to minimize the indiscriminate effects of landmines and to remove them at the end of active hostilities.” Unless renewed at the Human Rights Council, the mandate of the mission will expire in June 2022.

The electronic tablet left behind on the battlefield and provided to the BBC contained numerous Russian-language files and technical reference materials including maps of 35 coordinates that were labeled as locations of landmines and other explosive devices in Ain Zara, a southern Tripoli suburb. The tablet also contained around 130 diagrams of different types of mines and booby traps and instructions on emplacing them.

The maps indicated some of the type of mines placed in the mined area, which included the MON-50 and MON-200 directional fragmentation mines, and the OZM-72 bounding fragmentation mine. The maps were also labeled as “mined district” or “remote-controlled mine.” Libyan armed groups are not known to have used MON-50, MON-200, or OZM-72: these mines had not been identified in Libya before the 2019-2020 conflict.

The tablet also identified code names of fighters, one of which the BBC matched to a Wagner Group operative previously identified in a leaked UN report. The BBC said it believed the tablet belonged to a Wagner operative based on the data it contained and the location where it was found, one where Wagner operatives were known to have been based.

LibMAC told Human Rights Watch that in 2021 it conducted nontechnical surveys of the 35 locations listed in the tablet and found landmines and other explosive devices at all of them. These surveys are the starting point for identifying, accessing, collecting, and reporting on the location of landmines and explosive remnants of war. LibMAC then issued orders for clearance of the 35 locations to the Libyan demining group Free Fields.

Gen. Mohamed Al-Turjman, LibMAC’s director, said that the deminers that were deployed found that some of the mines or explosive devices had already exploded but that others were still active and needed to be cleared. He said three deminers were killed in two of these 35 locations: Khaled Hangar from the Defense Ministry’s Military Engineers, and two Free Fields specialists, Tarik Farhat and Hossam Bin Madi, on July 6, 2020. All three men were killed during clearance operations before the BBC’s reporting revealed the presence of the tablet.

A senior official at Free Fields, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that two of their staff were killed at one of the 35 locations by an OZM-72 mine.

The Russian government has previously denied any links to Wagner Group operations. In what appears to be the first acknowledgment by a senior Russian official of ties between the Wagner Group and Libyan authorities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with an Italian news channel on May 1, said that the Wagner Group “provides security services” to Mali’s government and that “a private body has [also] been invited by the Libyan authorities on a commercial basis, like in Mali.”

Individuals who carry out serious violations of the laws of war – including use of antipersonnel mines – with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. Those who commit, order, assist, or have command responsibility for war crimes in Libya are subject to prosecution by domestic courts and the ICC, which has a mandate over war crimes and other serious crimes committed in Libya since February 15, 2011.