Rome Statute signatories Italy, France and Greece accused of ‘violating’ international legal order by letting alleged war criminal fly over territory.
Published On 9 Jul 2025
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, has hit out at countries that allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fly over their airspace en route to the United States, suggesting that they may have flouted their obligations under international law.
Albanese said on Wednesday that the governments of Italy, France and Greece needed to explain why they provided “safe passage” to Netanyahu, who they were theoretically “obligated to arrest” as an internationally wanted suspect when he flew over their territory on his way to meet United States President Donald Trump on Sunday for talks.
All three countries are signatories of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, which last year issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated during Israel’s war on Gaza.
“Italian, French and Greek citizens deserve to know that every political action violating the int’l legal order, weakens and endangers all of them. And all of us,” Albanese wrote on X.
Albanese was responding to a post by human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, who had said the previous day that the countries had “breached their legal obligations under the treaty [Rome Statute], have declared their disdain for the victims of genocide, and have demonstrated their contempt for the rule of law”.
Netanyahu’s visit to the US, during which he and Trump discussed the forced displacement of Palestinians amid his country’s ongoing ceasefire nego