The International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor has warned that the law was threatened by “a world of brute force”, during his first public address since a UN investigation into alleged misconduct began last year.
Karim Khan spoke of the tremendous challenges he and his colleagues faced after they and their families had sanctions imposed by the US, after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024.
“This is a world of brute force, of a sledgehammer approach to justice,” he told students at the Oxford Union on Tuesday.
“We see in so many institutions an onslaught against the structures that were built by a generation that suffered almost Armageddon. We’ve seen that independent decisions are not universally welcomed.
“We’re living in the 1930s. We need to defend our borders, defend our frontiers and our values."
Mr Khan urged world leaders not to resort to “platitudes” but to take “concrete steps”.
But despite the pressure, he believed the embattled court still had a role to play – not least for the hope that it gives victims.
“The ICC is a court of last resort. It comes into action when there has been a failure. The question is not whether the ICC is perfect, but whether or not this world will be better with or without it,” Mr Khan said.
He went on extended leave a year ago after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him by female colleagues. Three judges in the court have said they have found no evidence of misconduct in the evidence presented to investigators, but the case remains open.
Addressing students on Tuesday, he said he was surprised to see a packed room. “I expected it to be one man and a dog,” he said.
Mr Khan made the Court’s landmark request for arrest warrants of Mr Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders who have since been killed.
Judges issued these in November 2024, but the case has been mired by objections from Israel’s international allies, including the UK and the US, and the controversy surrounding the claims against Mr Khan.
Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant are charged with war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
While some international lawyers have described the case against Israel as a “low-hanging fruit” for the ICC, others say that starvation from withholding aid will be a complex crime to prove.
Another challenge will be to get member states to enforce the arrest warrants, and not give diplomatic immunity to Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant.
On Tuesday, Mr Khan also defended the decision not to go further and charge Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant with genocide.
He argued that there was no “hierarchy” of crimes, meaning that the current charges against the two leaders were equally serious, and that he and his team were led by the evidence available to them. “We follow the evidence. It’s important we don’t give in to passion or clamour,” he said.
Mr Khan said he had been pressured by US and UK leaders to drop the request for the arrest warrants. This includes from British prime minister David Cameron and a letter from US senators.
He claimed that although he had received a "cacophony of applause" for his request to arrest Russian president Vladimir Putin, his attempts to indict Israeli leaders had been met with threats to himself and his family in the letter. He did not elaborate.
He claimed that the letter from US senators had included "threats" to his family, on which he did not elaborate.
Mr Khan said they had been strange to read because of the respect he had for American institutions. "Sometimes these letters speak more of those who sent them than to those they address."
Asked whether he would consider his tenure at the ICC to have failed if the arrests he requested are not made, Mr Khan said that it was the member states who will be judged.
“The states who created this court and promised to create justice, through the prism of cases, will be seen to co-operate fully, partially or not at all.”
But for now, Mr Khan has more pressing concerns. The ICC’s governing body that appointed the three judges to rule on his misconduct case, the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties, has since requested to make its own assessment of the UN report.
Mr Khan believes the absence of findings has exonerated him and that the matter was “now before the ASP”.
