Diplomat, professor emeritus in international relations at Sciences-Po Paris, the former Lebanese minister visiting Marseille was invited on November 23 to the Nouvelles Rencontres d’Averroès to talk about “Your Mediterranean”. The UN special envoy and international relations specialist has just published the Temptation of Mars. War and peace in the 21st centurye centurypublished by Fayard, a work in which he presents his analysis of current developments in the world.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular. What do you think of his reaction and those of other political leaders and editorialists discrediting international institutions?
We want to unravel everything we have done in terms of international law over four centuries, particularly during the 20th century.e century, with the Hague Agreement in 1929, the Geneva Protocols in 1949 and the more recent agreements which followed the end of the Cold War. The legal tradition of international law gives us a clear position from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which considers genocide to be plausible.
The ICC has given sufficient reasons to consider that war crimes were committed by Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant. We have our eyes to see. It is very difficult to say that a genocide did not take place in Gaza. And it is difficult to say that some of the methods implemented in Gaza are not applied in Lebanon and can be applied in the West Bank.
The plausibility of indicting Mr. Netanyahu seems to me entirely in the order of things. Except that the United States, Germany and Great Britain don’t want to hear about it. Certainly, they were very embarrassed on November 22 when Mr. Medvedev said he did not recognize the ICC. They could not denounce this declaration when, the very day before, they attacked the ICC and its arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
Belgium
