Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made two trips in April without being arrested: one to Hungary and the other to the United States (US). While commentators criticized Hungary for failing to arrest Netanyahu, arguing that as a state party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it had a duty to do so (the ICC initiated non-compliance proceedings), there has been no similar commentary regarding his trip to the US. This is likely because the US is not a state party to the ICC and is therefore under no obligation to cooperate with the Court and arrest him.
However, in this blog post, I argue that there is a universal obligation to arrest Netanyahu for the commission of grave breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) against Palestinians. The source of this obligation lies in the grave breaches regime of the Geneva Conventions for 1949. For that purpose, this post is divided into four sections. First, it outlines the obligations under the grave breaches regime. Second, it demonstrates the status of these obligations under contemporary international law. Third, it examines the question of immunities as a potential bar to enforcing this regime. Finally, it applies this legal framework to the case of Netanyahu.