{"id":9558,"date":"2023-07-18T08:28:47","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T08:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohelet.org.il\/article\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:26:07","slug":"judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial Reforms and the Threat of International Criminal Court Prosecution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The threat of prosecution by international bodies, prominent among them the ICC, has long been an argument against any action taken to curtail the Israeli judiciary&#8217;s power, this argument once again being amplified surrounding the recent judicial reform proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Advocate Avraham Russell Shalev and Professor Eugene Kontorovich from Kohelet&#8217;s international law department take a deep dive into this claim, demonstrating how the ICC argument firstly undermines Israel\u2019s principled objections to the tribunal\u2019s jurisdiction, and legitimizes ICC interference against Israel, regardless of whether any judicial reform is implemented, undermining years of diplomacy that portrayed the Court as illegitimate. Secondly, the small, highly modified components being discussed in the current proposal would not affect the prosecution of international war crimes. While enacting the government\u2019s proposed reforms would not affect the prosecution of war crimes, the opponents of the reforms invoking the specter of the ICC to buttress their case and alarm military soldiers may instead have created a self-fulfilling prophecy by increasing the likelihood of ICC prosecution of Israeli soldiers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">See the full paper:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ICC-reforms.pdf\">For the full document click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/en.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ICC-reforms.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of ICC reforms.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-b000f728-eaa4-4979-a00d-f702455e88d5\" href=\"https:\/\/en.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ICC-reforms.pdf\">ICC reforms<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/en.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ICC-reforms.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-b000f728-eaa4-4979-a00d-f702455e88d5\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The threat of International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution has, in recent years, been repeatedly\ninvoked by Israeli and foreign critics of various legislative proposals, including those with no\nconnection to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The ICC has emerged as a particularly important\ntheme in the ongoing debate about possible reforms to Israel\u2019s judicial system. Many have claimed\nthat any change in the current selection mechanism and powers of the Supreme Court, the powers\nof the attorney general, or even the narrowing of certain aspects of administrative review, would\nexpose Israeli soldiers and officers to criminal prosecution at The Hague.","protected":false},"featured_media":9559,"template":"","article-category":[525],"custom-tags":[41,704,546],"ppma_author":[49],"class_list":["post-9558","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article-category-publications","custom-tags-international-law","custom-tags-judicial-reform","custom-tags-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Judicial Reforms and the Threat of International Criminal Court Prosecution - kohelet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judicial Reforms and the Threat of International Criminal Court Prosecution - kohelet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The threat of International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution has, in recent years, been repeatedly invoked by Israeli and foreign critics of various legislative proposals, including those with no connection to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The ICC has emerged as a particularly important theme in the ongoing debate about possible reforms to Israel\u2019s judicial system. Many have claimed that any change in the current selection mechanism and powers of the Supreme Court, the powers of the attorney general, or even the narrowing of certain aspects of administrative review, would expose Israeli soldiers and officers to criminal prosecution at The Hague.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kohelet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Kohelet.org.il\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-07T07:26:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/screen.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1422\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"673\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@koheletforum\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.kohelet.org.il\\\/en\\\/article\\\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.kohelet.org.il\\\/en\\\/article\\\/judicial-reforms-and-the-threat-of-international-criminal-court-prosecution\\\/\",\"name\":\"Judicial Reforms and the Threat of International Criminal Court Prosecution - 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