Tag: Craig Mokhiber

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With a new attack on the ICC, the U.S. expands its assault on the rule of law by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

First, duly constituted international tribunals, as institutions of international law, are not a threat to any state’s sovereignty. To the contrary, they are expressions of sovereignty, as international law is formulated by states as an act of sovereignty.

States negotiate treaties, join international organizations, and consent to be bound by international law in order to benefit from inclusion in the international community of states, and to ensure a safer and more stable international legal order.

Nowhere is this clearer than in matters of the prohibition of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression — which represent the entire remit of the ICC. And the Court only acts in the wake of such atrocities when there is a jurisdictional basis to do so, and when relevant states are unable or unwilling to act.

Seeking to be excluded from accountability for the highest crimes in international law, or to exclude others from it, is not the behavior of a state worried about the technicalities of sovereignty. Rather, it is the act of a rogue state seeking to advance the cause of impunity for itself and its co-perpetrators.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/with-a-new-attack-on-the-icc-the-u-s-expands-its-assault-on-the-rule-of-law/

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The U.S. and Israeli campaign to liquidate the ICC is working. Countries of conscience must intervene. by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

the political Bureau of states, led by Western governments, decided in April to disregard the results of the investigation and to proceed with a disciplinary process, further delaying the Prosecutor’s return to his duties, and has now issued this second decision referring Khan to the full Assembly for disciplinary proceedings. 

In issuing these decisions, the political Bureau has stunned Court followers and campaigners for justice in genocide-ravaged Palestine for its open disregard for the findings of investigative bodies, its demonstrable procedural irregularities, the appearance of political bias, and a decade-long context of dedicated efforts by Israel, the U.S., the UK and other Western states to buttress Israeli impunity and to obstruct ICC justice on the Palestine case. Observers suspect that the obstruction campaign against Khan for his pursuit of Israeli perpetrators and the contemporaneous issuance of these decisions are more than just coincidental. 

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2026/06/the-u-s-and-israeli-campaign-to-liquidate-the-icc-is-working-countries-of-conscience-must-intervene/

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Ushering in the age of impunity: Venezuela, Palestine, and the end of international law by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

The recent sound of explosions over Venezuela, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria, and over the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Caribbean Sea, is not merely the sound of a momentary imperial spasm by a declining U.S. empire. 

It heralds something much more terrifying. 

A new world is being birthed (or perhaps, reborn, reminiscent as it is of the horrors of the first half of the 20th Century).

… From the mass incarceration and police excesses of the “war on drugs,” to the renditions, executions, and torture of the “war on terrorism,” to the systematic immiseration of the many in order to consolidate the wealth and power of the few, the U.S. empire has been on a decades-long warpath culminating with the extermination of the Palestinian people and this week’s assault on Venezuela. 

These ever-expanding ripples of oppression, unchecked, threaten us all. 

Because, in a world where even genocide is not a red line, there are no red lines.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/ushering-in-the-age-of-impunity-venezuela-palestine-and-the-end-of-international-law/

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How the world can resist the UN Security Council’s rogue colonial mandate in Gaza by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

In the wake of the Security Council adoption of resolution 2803 last month (a resolution that shocked legal analysts and human rights defenders around the globe for its blatantly colonial content, and about which I have written previously) even critics of the resolution have thrown up their hands to declare “oh well, the Security Council adopted it, so now its law.” In other words, to paraphrase Nixon, “if the Security Council does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/how-the-world-can-resist-the-un-security-councils-rogue-colonial-mandate-in-gaza/

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The UN Embraces Colonialism: Unpacking the Security Council’s mandate for the U.S. colonial administration of Gaza by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

More than two years into the genocide in Palestine, the UN Security Council has finally acted. But rather than acting to enforce international law, protect the victims, and hold the perpetrators accountable, it adopted a resolution that openly flouts key provisions of international law, disempowers and further punishes the victims, and rewards and empowers the perpetrators. 

Most disturbingly, it hands control of Gaza and the survivors of the genocide over to the United States, a co-perpetrator of the genocide, and provides for the participation of the Israeli regime in decision making. Under the plan, Palestinians themselves are to be granted no such participation in decisions on their own rights, governance, and lives. 

In adopting this resolution, the Council, in effect, has become a mechanism of U.S. oppression, an instrument for the continued unlawful occupation of Palestine, and a complicit actor in Israel’s genocide.

Not since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous people, setting the stage for 80 years of Nakba, has the UN acted in such a baldly colonial (and legally ultra vires) way, and trampled so recklessly on the rights of a people.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/the-un-embraces-colonialism-unpacking-the-security-councils-mandate-for-the-u-s-colonial-administration-of-gaza/

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Turmoil at the ICC as fears rise over Israel and the U.S. interference by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.


  1. The risks to the ICC are real. 
  3. Both Israel and the U.S. have demonstrated that they have no respect for the rule of law, and no qualms about threatening or otherwise corrupting the Court. 
  5. And the ICC itself has a long way to go to prove to the world that it is committed to its mandated role of universal justice rather than serving as a mere selective arm of Western power. 
  7. But the strength of the case against Netanyahu, Gallant, and other Israeli leaders, in the world’s first live-streamed genocide, and under the glare of unprecedented public attention, gives reason for hope.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/turmoil-at-the-icc-as-fears-rise-over-israel-and-the-u-s-interference/

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Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  1. Der Sturmer knew what they were doing. Mille Collines knew what they were doing. And, today, CNN, Fox, BBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal know what they are doing… western media companies have made themselves a part of the mechanism of genocide in Palestine. Absent real accountability, these influential actors will continue to abuse their power, thereby trampling on the human rights of any people who fall on the wrong side of the line between those supported by these companies, and those who they choose to denigrate and dehumanize. 

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/western-media-can-be-held-legally-accountable-for-its-role-in-the-gaza-genocide/

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Former Top UN Official Craig Mokhiber on Israel’s Genocide on This Is Palestine

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Craig Mokhiber: This is very much a world in which the West is complicit in genocide in the 21st century.

Diana Buttu: I was gonna ask you- this is probably the last question I have, which is- fast forward let’s say 10-20 years, how do you think the world is going to look back on this?

CM: I mean I think that there’s no doubt that retrospectively there’ll be a lot of shame. For- not just the failure of many to respond to a genocide unfolding before their eyes, but- the complicity of many. Not just governments, but- as I say- people in the media, people in everyday life. But that’s not going to bring justice to the Palestinian people for what has been perpetrated on them. And that’s why I think beyond shame there has to be actual individual criminal accountability for perpetrators. There has to be a reckoning when it comes to the media, so that there’s some level of accountability there. 

Listen at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-top-un-official-craig-mokhiber-on-israels-genocide/id1509337661?i=1000635722109

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The Gaza assault is a textbook case of genocide – top official tells UN in resignation letter by Craig Mokhiber

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

… This is a textbook case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations “to ensure respect” for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities.

In concert with this, Western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], continuously dehumanising Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.

US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel-lobby online trolls and Gongos [government-sponsored non-governmental organisations] are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and Western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for Radio Milles Collines in Rwanda.

Continue reading at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-11-01-the-gaza-assault-is-a-textbook-case-of-genocide-top-official-tells-un-in-resignation-letter/

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Director in the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber: “The international community needs to finally confront the decades long reality of ongoing genocide in Palestine”

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

 

Continue watching at https://twitter.com/CraigMokhiber/status/1629996613140721664