Alan Baker, Ambassador and Director of the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs responded to the statement of the ICC following requests to investigate Israel.
"There is no legal basis to such requests," Baker explains, "since only sovereign states may appeal to the court and there exists no sovereign Palestinian state with sovereign territory over which the court could extend its jurisdiction."
"If the court accepts the Palestinian requests and opens a formal investigation, it will damage its own juridical credibility and become politicized like other UN bodies.
"This is what the Palestinian leadership is trying to do to the great detriment, and possibly ruination of the ICC."
Amb. Baker is a former legal adviser at the Israel foreign ministry and the former Israeli ambassador to Canada.