The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has determined that an armed conflict exists ‘whenever there is resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organised armed groups or between such groups within a State’. International Humanitarian Law is the body of law governing armed conflicts, thus the triggering of IHL is dependent on a situation being defined as an armed conflict. The ICJ has competence to look at whether the law against war (jus ad bellum) has been breached, which will be considered in the later half of this article. This move towards international justice opens the possibility that it may also decide in the future to award jurisdiction over the conflict to the International Court of Justice. Before any case can come before the Court, it must be determined what type of conflict exists as this has direct implications for the range of war crimes that can be prosecuted.
In January 2015 it was announced that Palestine was to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which was swiftly followed by announcement from the ICC Prosecutor that she was opening a preliminary examination into the conflict last summer.
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