A few hours after leaving Israel, Prosecutor Karim Khan joined the annual meeting of the 123 state parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday, December 4. The prosecutor has until December 14 to defend his budget on the three major cases that have come before him since he took office in June 2021: Ukraine, Darfur and Palestine.

The 2023 session of this assembly promises to be eventful. On November 17, South Africa, the Comoros, Djibouti, Bolivia and Bangladesh referred to the Court over the colonization of the Palestinian territories and the ongoing bombardments in Gaza. Their aim was to compel the prosecutor to take up the most sensitive case ever brought before the Court. "If, in the future, it is considered that the prosecutor is hesitating, there could be a massive withdrawal" from the Court's treaty, said a diplomatic source. This threat has been made in the past, but would be more serious this time, "especially as in 2023, the sense of allegiance [of several countries to the West] has clearly changed." Other non-member states also intend to exert influence. In November, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation announced that they would appoint a team to monitor the progress of the investigation.

All these initiatives hold a mirror up to the West. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than 40 states overwhelmingly supported the prosecutor. In contrast, Western support for the investigation into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been more hesitant. At the opening of the Assembly on December 4, Human Rights Watch deplored political positions that feed "perceptions of double standards in government support for international justice, putting the ICC’s legitimacy at risk." In this particular case, the lack of support has long been coupled with direct opposition to the investigation.

From the opening chapter, with the symbolic filing of a complaint against Israel in 2009, Israel, which is not a member of the ICC, has tried to prevent any examination by the Court of the conflict that has pitted it against the Palestinians since 1948. The Palestinian Authority went through years of proceedings before obtaining a case number: ICC-01/18. Former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened an investigation in March 2021, three months before handing over to Khan. But for nearly three years, the case of crimes committed since June 2014 in the occupied Palestinian territories has been at a standstill. Palestine has been a member of the Court since 2015 and, as such, the prosecutor also has jurisdiction over crimes committed on Israeli territory by any Palestinian national. A complaint to this effect has been lodged by the Israeli families of victims of the October 7 attacks launched by Hamas in southern Israel.

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