U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer’s newly elected government on Friday dropped the country’s plans to oppose the International Criminal Court’s request for an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, marking a notable reversal from the prior U.K. administration’s stance on the issue.
“This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide,” said a spokesperson for Starmer, whose Labour Party ousted Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak from office in a landslide election victory earlier this month.
In May, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan sought applications for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and three senior Hamas officials — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. Khan accused the leaders on both sides of the conflict of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel’s war in Gaza and Hamas’s attack on October 7.
The ICC claims it holds jurisdiction over Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to abide by the court’s founding document, the Rome Statute.
Alan Dershowitz, however, argues the court lacks jurisdiction over Israel in Gaza and contends the court is prevented from “investigating any individual from a state that is willing and able to conduct a genuine investigation of that person,” which he notes Israel is doing.
The court’s move drew backlash from Netanyahu, other Israeli officials, President Joe Biden, and Sunak. In siding with the U.S. position, the former prime minister declared there is no “moral equivalence” between Israel’s right to defend itself and Hamas’s brutal attack on Israeli citizens.
“It is wrong to conflate and equivocate between those two different entities,” Sunak said a day after the ICC requested the arrest warrants. He added that the court’s move would have made “absolutely no difference” in ensuring wider peace in the Middle East and ending the Israel-Hamas war.
The Labour Party meanwhile backed the the international tribunal’s efforts to arrest Netanyahu, saying at the time that the U.K. has a “legal obligation” to comply with the warrants. The statement from Starmer’s office reflects that sentiment.
The British government had until Friday to challenge the arrest warrants. The U.K. is one of 124 countries that are ICC members; however, Israel and the U.S. are not parties to the court.
The ICC, based in the Hague, Netherlands, relies on cooperation from its members to enforce its arrest warrants and other decisions. In the event of the warrants being granted, Netanyahu and the four other officials could risk arrest when traveling to any of the 124 member countries.
In his travels to the U.S. this week, Netanyahu delivered a fiery speech to a joint session of Congress and met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The three political leaders reportedly discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and efforts to end the conflict, such as securing a cease-fire deal and freeing Hamas’s remaining hostages.
Netanyahu also met with former president Donald Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where the Republican presidential nominee pledged to bring peace to the Middle East and combat antisemitism on college and university campuses in the U.S.