Country Watch
coup that started to rid the country of corruption is now paying its leaders nearly 10 times what the average Thai worker earns.
Since enacting the interim constitution, General Prayuth has further cemented his power by be- coming the country’s 29th prime minister and finalizing a cabinet. The new prime minister is calling for a year of political reforms before hold- ing elections in late 2015. This comes in sharp contrast to the efforts of previous coup leaders who handed power to civilians almost immedi- ately after taking power. In the 2006 coup, the international community cut $24 million USD in aid to Thailand, including money designated for the military. While those steps were effective in transferring power to civilian leaders, some are now calling for a new round of sanctions that go a step further in restoring a legitimate democracy.
* Submitted by Stephen Steele Palestine Files Complaint with the ICC
This past July, Palestinian Officials filed a com- plaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza. The accu- sations include attacks against innocent civilians, the massive loss of human life, and colonization. Now, the ICC must decide whether it has jurisdic- tion to investigate the complaint.
Since the conflict began on July 8, over 2,000 Pal- estinians have been killed including 500 children, and about 100,000 Gazans have been displaced from their homes. Notably, the U.N. Human Rights Council established “an international com- mission of inquiry to investigate alleged interna- tional humanitarian and human rights law viola- tions committed by both Israelis and Palestinians during the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip.”
However, much like it was from 2009 to 2012, the ICC’s jurisdiction over Palestine has been the sub- ject of critical debate. On August 5, the prosecu- tor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, met with the Min-
ister of Foreign Affairs of Palestine, Riad al-Malki to clarify the “different mechanisms for a State to accept the jurisdiction of the ICC and generally regarding the legal framework of the Rome Stat- ute.” The ICC, created by the Rome Statute, has jurisdiction over three kinds of crimes. Because the court does not have universal jurisdiction, the court only has jurisdiction in a few circumstances such as a country being a party to the Rome Stat- ute. Now that Palestine has been recognized by the U.N. as a “non-Member Observer State[,]” ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda made it clear the ICC could have jurisdiction over the complaint in one of two ways. Palestine could either accede to the Rome statute or accept jurisdiction “through an ad hoc declaration ... pursuant to article 12-3 of the [Rome] statute.” An ad hoc declaration would grant the ICC jurisdiction even though Palestine is not a party to the Rome Statute.
Recently, Hamas has “pledge[d] to back any Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court[.]” The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has also “obtained such support from all factions in the Palestine Liberation Organisa- tion.” For Palestine to agree to ICC jurisdiction, all of the Palestinian factions must agree with the declaration. In an op-ed, Bensouda explained, “[i] t is a matter of public record that Palestinian lead- ers are in the process of consulting internally on whether to do so; the decision is theirs alone and as ICC prosecutor, I cannot make it for them.”
If the ICC does have jurisdiction over Palestin- ian matters in the future, Israel’s military actions would not be the only focus of an ICC investi- gation; the ICC would also investigate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Although the Hague court has faced a tremendous amount of political pressure from the West to not open an investigation for war crimes, Bensouda explained “the legal rules that apply are clear and decidedly not political under any circumstances.” Reassur- ingly, Bensouda wrote,
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