In an exclusive bombshell revelation obtained by Middle East Eye, the United Kingdom’s most senior government legal official raised urgent red flags last year over fundamental legal flaws in the International Criminal Court’s planned disciplinary proceedings against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Sir James Eadie KC, the UK’s first treasury counsel and the British government’s permanent senior legal advisor, prepared the confidential 21-page legal opinion in a private capacity in November 2025. The document was submitted to the president and Bureau of the ICC Assembly of States Parties (ASP) at the request of Khan’s own legal team, which sought Eadie’s expertise to guide the bureau as it weighed the structure of the misconduct probe.
At the core of Eadie’s criticism is the narrow, restrictive mandate the ASP Bureau assigned to a three-judge panel convened to review misconduct allegations against Khan. Eadie argued that bureau leaders had stripped the panel of its core adjudicative authority, eliminating any independent judicial fact-finding role entirely. He stressed that this framework leaves “no judicial, or independent, fact-finding phase at all” and renders the process “unlawful, unsustainable in principle”.
Eadie further argued that the United Nations Office of Oversight Services (OIOS), which was tasked with leading the underlying investigation into the allegations, should be limited only to compiling evidence and documenting witness statements. Any final determination of disputed facts, he insisted, must rest with the independent judicial panel. “It would be entirely inappropriate in principle for the investigator (in effect the prosecutor of the misconduct charges) also to be the judge,” Eadie wrote in the opinion obtained via diplomatic sources.
The legal expert outlined that minimum fair process standards require a judicial proceeding, including an oral hearing where the panel can test witness credibility through cross-examination of live evidence, and that any final decision on findings of fact cannot be carried out by executive or political bodies. Despite Khan’s legal team formally requesting this foundational fair process in a July 2025 letter to ASP President Paivi Kaukoranta, the bureau rejected all such requests, and even denied the panel’s request for an extension to review Khan’s submissions.
The disciplinary process traces back to November 2024, when Kaukoranta authorized an ad hoc probe led by OIOS after the complainant in the case refused to cooperate with the ICC’s own internal investigative body. Four allegations were opened against Khan: a complaint from a female staff member alleging unwelcome sexual conduct and abuse of authority, plus three additional claims of retaliation against other office employees. Khan has issued a full denial of all misconduct and breach of duty allegations.
Over 12 months, OIOS collected evidence and submitted a 150-page investigative report alongside 5,000 pages of supporting evidence to the three-judge panel in December 2025. After nearly three months of review, the panel issued a unanimous ruling: the evidence presented by UN investigators failed to meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for finding misconduct or breach of duty under ICC rules.
Weeks after the panel’s ruling, however, a majority of ASP Bureau members representing 21 member states voted to disregard the judges’ conclusion and signal that they believed Khan likely committed misconduct. The move sparked widespread concerns that the entire process had been tainted by political interference. In early June, the bureau gave Khan and the complainant a final opportunity for additional submissions before formally suspending Khan and referring the entire matter to the full ASP. The court’s 125 member states will now convene a special session at UN Headquarters in New York on July 24 to vote on whether to remove Khan from office permanently.
Eadie’s opinion specifically tied the need for a fair, independent process to the intense political pressure surrounding Khan’s leadership of the ICC’s ongoing investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza. He noted that the political context, including punitive sanctions imposed by the United States on Khan and other ICC staff after the court announced arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and senior Hamas officials, makes procedural integrity critical to protecting the court’s credibility.
“If such officials can be removed or disciplined without a proper adjudication of the allegations against them, against that political context, the integrity of the ICC and its perceived integrity will be fundamentally undermined,” Eadie wrote.
Khan, a British barrister, was elected as the ICC’s third chief prosecutor in February 2021, nearly two decades after the court’s founding in 2002. During his tenure, his office has opened investigations into grave international crimes allegedly committed by leaders across the globe, including issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Myanmar’s junta leadership, and Taliban officials in Afghanistan. His work targeting powerful state leaders has drawn retaliation: the Trump administration first imposed US sanctions on Khan in 2025, and a Russian court has issued an in absentia arrest warrant for him. Sanctions have since been expanded to target two deputy ICC prosecutors, eight ICC judges involved in the Palestine and Afghanistan investigations, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, and multiple Palestinian non-governmental organizations that provided evidence to the court. None of the US, Russia, or Israel are member states of the ICC, but the court holds jurisdiction over crimes committed by their nationals on the territory of ICC member countries.
The exclusive disclosure of Eadie’s confidential legal opinion comes as the ICC faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens to undermine its standing as the world’s permanent international criminal tribunal, with critics warning that a political vote to remove Khan amid pressure over the Gaza investigation would fatally damage the court’s reputation for impartiality.