Situation in the State of Palestine

I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Applicants request leave to submit amici curiae observations, pursuant to the Order of the Pre-Trial Chamber I dated 28 January 2020.
2. Pursuant to rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the Applicants request leave to submit observations on the question of jurisdiction set forth in paragraph 220 of the Prosecutor’s Request dated 22 January 2020.


II. THE APPLICANTS AND THEIR EXPERTISE

3. Prof. Laurie Blank is Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and the Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law, where she teaches the law of armed conflict and works directly with students to provide assistance to international tribunals, non-governmental organisations and militaries around the world on cutting edge issues in humanitarian law and human rights. Blank is the co-author of International Law and Armed Conflict: Fundamental Principles and Contemporary Challenges in the Law of War, a casebook on the law of war (with G. Noone, Aspen Publishing 2nd edition 2019; Concise Edition 2016).

4. Dr. Matthijs de Blois has an LL.M. from Utrecht University and a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden where he was Assistant Professor. He is co-author of the book Israel on Trial (2018) and author of many articles on international and European Union (EU) law, including journal articles and book chapters on the legal status of the Mandate for Palestine. He is Senior Fellow at The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation.

5. Prof. Geoffrey Corn is the Vinson and Elkins Professor of Law and Director, Center for International Legal Practice and National Security at South Texas College of Law at Houston and Distinguished Fellow, JINSA Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy. Corn’s teaching and scholarship focus on the law of armed conflict, national security law, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Prior to joining the South Texas faculty in 2005, Corn’s 21 years as an officer in the United States (US) Army included service as the Army’s senior law of war expert advisor; tactical intelligence officer in Panama; supervisory defence counsel for the Western US; chief of international law for US Army Europe; professor of international and national security law at the US Army Judge Advocate General’s School; and chief prosecutor for the 101st Airborne Division. Corn has testified as an expert witness at the Military Commission in Guantanamo, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and in federal court. He is co-author of The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Perspective; The Laws of War and the War on Terror; National Security Law and Policy: Principles and Policy; U.S. Military Operations: Law, Policy, and Practice;National Security Law and the Constitution; and Law in War: A Concise Overview (with K. Watkin and J. Williamson).

6. Dr. Daphné Richemond-Barak is Assistant Professor at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC Herzliya). She holds a Maitrise from Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), a Diploma in Legal Studies from Oxford University (Hertford College), an LL.M. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. Her monograph, Underground Warfare, was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press, and she is the author of the seventh edition of Shabtai Rosenne’s The World Court: What it Is and How it Works, forthcoming with Brill. She has acted as a legal adviser to States including the government of Colombia in its territorial dispute against Nicaragua before the International Court of Justice.

7. Prof. Gregory Rose is the author of four books including Detention of Non-State Actors: The Future Law (2014, Routledge) on detention in transnational military operations, and Following the Proceeds of Environmental Crime: Forests, Fish and Filthy Lucre (2016, Martinus Nijhoff) and many international law journal articles. He has taught international law for 30 years at the University of London and the University of Wollongong Australia. He was responsible for international criminal law matters in the Legal Office of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1994-97.

8. Prof. Robbie Sabel Ph.D. is Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law Hebrew University Jerusalem; Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration; Former Legal Adviser in Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Agent for Israel, Taba arbitration with Egypt; Member of delegation, peace talks with Egypt, Jordan and Palestinians. He is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, New York Law School, Queen Mary’s College London, Tel Aviv University, and IDC Herzliya. His publications include Procedure in International Conferences (Cambridge University Press, 3rd edition 2018), which was awarded the American Society of International Law annual award for merit.

9. Prof. Gil Troy is Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University, his academic home since 1990. He was 2015 visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution and taught history and literature at Harvard University from 1988 to 1990, where he earned his A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. in History. Troy is the author of eleven books, and the editor of two books, including an award-winning analysis of the opposition to the 1975 United Nations Resolution 3379, spearheaded by the US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan called Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight against Zionism as Racism (2012), which also details Moynihan’s fight against the misapplication of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

10. Mr. Andrew Tucker is Director of The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation, a non-profit think-tank based in The Hague that comprises a global network of practitioners and academics in the field of international law who seek to promote the fair and just application of international law in international relations, in particular to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He has been a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a senior research fellow at the TMC Asser Institute. He is the co-author of the book Israel on Trial (2018) and has published many journal articles on international and EU law.