The International Criminal Court in The Hague has rejected Israel’s appeal based on the principle of complementarity, leaving in force the arrest warrants issued last November against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
The decision, delivered more than a year after the appeal was filed, was adopted on Monday by a narrow majority of three judges to two and is final, having been issued by the court’s Appeals Chamber.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry sharply criticised the ruling, describing it as “another example of the ongoing politicization of the International Criminal Court” and saying it reflects “politics disguised as ‘international law.’”
In its appeal, Israel argued that the ICC prosecutor should have given the state an opportunity to investigate the alleged conduct itself, in line with the principle of complementarity enshrined in the Rome Statute. According to the minority opinion at the court, Israel should indeed have been given an opportunity to notify the prosecutor that it was conducting investigations into the acts attributed to it, and that the initial notification provided in 2018 was insufficiently precise.
Israel, however, maintains that it did not commit war crimes, rendering the issue largely theoretical from its perspective. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said Israel “rejects the Appeals Chamber’s decision, adopted by a razor-thin majority, to deny Israel its right to prior notification as required under the principle of complementarity, particularly with respect to a democratic state with an independent and robust judicial system.”
The ministry added that the ruling demonstrates “the court’s blatant disregard for the sovereign rights of non-party states, as well as its own obligations under the Rome Statute.”
Last November, Israel submitted two documents to the ICC Appeals Chamber in response to the arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant. In the first document, spanning 14 pages, Israel challenged the jurisdiction of the Pre-Trial Chamber that authorised the warrants. In the second, a 13-page filing, Israel rejected the court’s reasoning for refusing to allow the investigation to be returned to Israeli authorities.
Israel argued that it did not receive adequate notification under Article 18(1) of the Rome Statute regarding the court’s investigations into events following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, stating that a notification issued in 2021 related to earlier events and was not applicable to the unprecedented circumstances that followed the massacre in southern Israel.
Among Israel’s central arguments was that the court’s decision ignored its right to demonstrate that its domestic investigative mechanisms are addressing the alleged crimes, as required under the principle of complementarity. Israel also argued that the ruling undermines its sovereignty and the ICC’s obligations toward states that are not parties to the Rome Statute, including Israel.
