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Israeli Attorney General Challenges ICC Jurisdiction in Palestine

Gordon Ahl
Friday, December 20, 2019, 10:22 AM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

The Office of the Attorney General for the state of Israel released a detailed memorandum to explain why the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction over Palestine. The memo argues that Palestine has failed to meet the necessary precondition of possessing criminal jurisdiction over its territory since a sovereign Palestinian state does not exist at this time. The memo is available here and below.

The prosecutor subsequently released a video in which she announced that her office was seeking a ruling from an ICC Pre-trial Chamber over the question of jurisdiction in Palestine for the purposes of launching a formal investigation.


Gordon Ahl is a senior at Georgetown University, studying international politics. He is an intern at Lawfare and the Brookings Institution.

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