Thread by @Xy5Z89

-Long thread-

#Palestine #Austria #Israel #Ramallah

Austria has not recognized "Palestine" as a state. How can there be a “Representation of the State of Palestine” in Vienna?
The Palestinian Authority is mad at Austria.

The reason for this is a statement made by the legal department of the Austrian Foreign Ministry at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in mid-March. Roughly speaking, the republic questioned the ICC's jurisdiction over "Palestine" because it was not recognized

as a sovereign state. Although some other states, including Germany, have found much clearer words to the Court on this issue, the PA regards the Austrian statement as an unfriendly act and therefore quotes the Austrian representative in Ramallah to diplomatically wash her head.

If you analyze the document that was written by the legal department of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you have to wonder why the PA reacted to the Austrian position with diplomatic annoyance. Because among the statements submitted,

the Austrian was still comparatively harmless from the perspective of the Palestinians - presumably it was less the substance of the statements that were more important than the surprise that Austria, as unfortunately since the reign of Bruno Kreisky,

had not become a matter of course the Palestinian side struck. The essence of the Austrian statement is that the fact that "Palestine" has joined the Rome Statute "does not automatically mean that the acceding entity has become a sovereign state and to the ICC (...)

regarding the territory, the cause, the People and the time has jurisdiction ”. The accession to the ICC "does not imply that Palestine is thereby automatically recognized by Austria and all other contracting states of the statute as a sovereign state that fulfills all criteria

of statehood under international law." Austria did not oppose the accession of "Palestine" to the ICC and opposes other international organizations, but that "must not be interpreted as recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state by Austria." According to international law,

there are three "classic criteria of statehood": "1) a defined territory, 2) a permanent population and 3) an independent and effective government ”. Regardless of whether the question of the statehood of an entity depends on its recognition by other states,

or whether it constitutes only a "declaratory act", the Republic of Austria wants to underline that it "has not recognized Palestine as a sovereign state and not a diplomatic one Maintains bilateral relations with Palestine ”.

A recognition by Austria is dependent on the achievement of a two-state solution. For the central question of the jurisdiction of the ICC over "Palestine",

the question must be answered, which legal consequences result from the fact that a contracting state never had criminal jurisdiction over a territory before it was occupied by another state .

Now one can assume that Austria does not see the jurisdiction of the ICC as given because the areas in question, before they came under Israeli control, were illegally annexed by Jordan or occupied by Egypt and were never under Palestinian jurisdiction.

In the opinion, however, the question is only raised without answering it. In conclusion, Austria emphasizes that it has full confidence in the independence and impartiality of the court in the implementation of the Rome Statute. That means:

Ultimately, the Republic will support the decision of the ICC, however it turns out. In practice, this is little more than a blank check with a thoughtful expression for the court to drag Israel to the dock -

which is why the anger of the PA about the Austrian attitude seems to be out of place in substance. With its statement submitted to the ICC, Germany has demonstrated that there is another way of doing things that is typically Austrian.

According to Article 12 of the Rome Statute, the German letter begins, the ICC can only exercise jurisdiction that has been delegated to it by a state; that is the basis for an effective and internationally recognized International Criminal Court.

Without bothering, the statement immediately gets to the heart of the matter: "With these comments, Germany is presenting its well-known position, which has been repeatedly expressed in various international forums (...)

that the Palestinian Territories are currently lacking statehood and the Court therefore has no jurisdiction in this specific case. " Like Austria, Germany is also committed to a two-state solution to be negotiated, in which territorial boundaries would have to be established,

which only allowed the PA full jurisdiction. But the Federal Republic immediately added a warning to The Hague: "It would be bad for the Court to decide these questions and it should avoid being drawn into a highly controversial dispute about statehood and borders."

Germany explains much more in detail than the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that neither the upgrading to a “non-member state with observer status” at the United, nor the accession to the Rome Statute made “Palestine” a state.

The PA, which arose in the course of the Oslo peace process, only exercises self-government over parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, from which the political and economic structures for a future Palestinian state could emerge.

Central issues, including important ones such as the country's borders, the status of Jerusalem and others, are the subject of negotiations on the ultimate status of "Palestine". Until then, the PA did not have full jurisdiction over the areas -

and therefore could not delegate them to the ICC. Contrary assumptions by prosecutor Bensouda are "highly problematic". Every investigation initiated by the ICC must be on a "solid legal basis" - and Germany believes that such a basis is missing in this case.

So where the Austrians raised questions that at most implied possible answers, Germany did what the whole thing was about: it answered the question whether the ICC has the necessary jurisdiction to initiate investigations into alleged war crimes in "Palestine".

And the Federal Republic, like other states that have commented on this, answered with a clear and unequivocal no. This did not prevent the prosecutor from ignoring these truly fundamental objections and declaring on April 30 that she had "a satisfactory basis for starting an

investigation into the situation in Palestine". This confirmed what a representative of the PA had previously frankly stated to a Jordanian newspaper: that the whole process of obtaining opinions on the question of jurisdiction was a

farce that served the purpose of making a decision that had long been made appear to be legitimate miss and not damage the public image of the ICC. Let us come back to the current upset between the PA and Austria. When asked about this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated,

according to a report by the courier, "that, from a purely international law perspective, diplomatic relations can only exist between states - and Austria has not bilaterally recognized Palestine as a state."

That is why there is an Austrian representative office in Ramallah but not a regular message. Conversely, the representation of the PLO in Austria was only granted to use the name "Representation of Palestine".

If you take a look at the sign that identifies this branch in Vienna (see above), it is indeed not an embassy but a representation that is mentioned there - however, it should be "the state of Palestine".

One inevitably wonders: Why can an entity that is not recognized by the Republic of Austria as a state and with which there are no bilateral diplomatic relations appear in the middle of Vienna as the "State of Palestine"?

Sources
(mainly German and some PDF)

1.(G)orf.at/stories/316657…
2.(G)legal-tools.org/doc/sz7bcl/pdf/ (PDF, Statment Austria)
3.(G)legal-tools.org/doc/8bwxco/pdf/ (PDF, statement Germany)
4.(G)mena-watch.com/tschechien-pal… (Position other states)
5.(G)icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/C… (court)

6.(G)mena-watch.com/internationale… (Jordanian report compared and comemtated in German)
7.(G)kurier.at/politik/auslan… (Newsreport @KURIERat )

@threadreaderapp please unroll