Would the Federal Council have the Israeli Prime Minister arrested under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague? On December 10, Berne did not respond to this question from national councilor Daniel Sormanni (MCG/GE). However, it is still in the news in the run-up to the World Economic Forum (WEF) where heads of state generally go. In an interview with “SonntagsBlick”, former Swiss diplomat Didier Pfirter – who participated in the creation of the ICC – recalled that Switzerland would be required to arrest Benyamin Netanyahu if he went to Davos. Because as a State party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Switzerland must execute its arrest warrants unconditionally. “It is not up to us to judge whether the Court’s decision is justified or not,” he specifies.
“Netanyahu will be careful not to go to Switzerland without having the assurance that he will not be arrested,” notes Didier Pfirter. But, he specifies, if Berne gave him such immunity, it would constitute a violation of our country’s obligations, which would be “disastrous”.
If Switzerland no longer perceived its obligations “only selectively, depending on the political proximity that an accused would have with us, there would be a politicization of the ICC,” according to the retired diplomat. This is why, for him, the banning of Hamas by Parliament represents a break with current Swiss practice which consists of banning acts and not organizations. He fears that now our country will be put under pressure to also ban other organizations, such as the Kurdish PKK. “We will have difficulty arguing if we do not do so,” he concludes.
