On January 16, 2015, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer, opened a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” Her decision quickly followed the accession of the Palestinian Authority on January 2, 2015 to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC.   A preliminary examination is not an investigation but the process used to ascertain whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with one. According to ICC regulations the decision to conduct an investigation is made after information is collected and consideration of issues of jurisdiction, admissibility and the interests of justice are taken into consideration.   The first issue that must be addressed is the technical legal question of whether “Palestine” can be considered a state and therefore eligible to join the ICC.   The ICC reasoning was that on November 22, 2012 the UN General Assembly had approved, by a...(Read Full Article)