US lobbying UK to block ICC's move for Netanyahu arrest warrant

The US is lobbying the UK’s new Labour government not to drop a legal challenge against the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) authority seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, a US intelligence official told Middle East Eye.

The pressure comes as Keir Starmer’s newly-elected Labour government mulls whether or not to continue the legal challenge against the ICC, which the UK’s former Conservative government filed in May. The ICC has given the UK until 26 July to decide.

The UK's amicus brief appeal rests on the assertation that the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian National Authority prevents Palestine from prosecuting Israelis for war crimes.

The argument has been critiqued as flimsy by legal scholars. Palestine was accepted into the ICC in 2015, and in 2021 the court said it had the power to investigate war crimes in the occupied territories. 

Read more: US lobbying UK to block ICC's move for Netanyahu arrest warrant