Palestine has accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 13 June 2014. This was reported in the court, with the addition that the adoption of jurisdiction is different from applying for accession to the Statute of Rome, which is currently under consideration by the UN.
The Secretariat of the ICC on January 1 "received the documents submitted in accordance with Article 12/3/ of the Statute of Rome, in which the Palestinian government said the country is adopting the court's jurisdiction starting from June 13, 2014." Joining the ICC allows the Palestinians to bring charges of war crimes against Israeli decision-makers.
In essence, this means that the ICC will be able to consider crimes committed on the territory of Palestine, from that date (but not before). "Moreover, the adoption of jurisdiction does not automatically launch an investigation. The corresponding decision should be made by the prosecutor in accordance with strictly defined procedures," it was said in court, Tass reports. The application of Palestine for accession to a number of documents was submitted to the UN on January 2. The documents include the Rome Statute and the founding document of the ICC. The UN is currently considering this application.
