US says ICC can't treat Netanyahu, Putin equally. EU begs to differ

EU member states should fulfil their obligations under international law by complying with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, the EU foreign policy chief said.

Stressing that all EU members are parties to the Rome Convention, which founded the International Criminal Court (ICC), Josep Borrell said: “You cannot pick and choose. You cannot uphold when the court goes against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and remain silent when the court goes against Netanyahu.”

"I ask the member states of the EU to fulfill their obligation on the international law. Like it or not, ICC is a court as powerful as any national court,” he added.

Borrell warned: “If Europe doesn’t support the ICC, there will be no hope for justice."

The statement comes after the US defended its differing stances on the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for Russian and Israeli officials, asserting that the two cases are fundamentally distinct.

"I don't think there is any equivalence between the case that the ICC has brought against Russia and the case that it has brought against Israel," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters when asked about the difference in the US approach to the ICC's arrest warrant for Putin and its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

He highlighted significant differences between the two countries, saying that "Russia is not a democracy, does not have a functioning, independent legal system, and is not investigating violations of international humanitarian law by its soldiers."