International Criminal Court

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swatiraohnlu

Swati Rao
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. A number of states, including China, Russia, India and the United States, are critical of the Court and have not joined. The Court can generally exercise jurisdiction only in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council. The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore left to individual states. Whether the International Criminal Court is a good idea?
 
* Cooperation in ICC and rule of law is best overall for stability Dennis Kucinich. "The US Administration and the ICC". Common Dreams. 9 Dec. 2004 - "There are many in our United States government who do understand that Peace can only be obtained through international cooperation and adherence by all nations to high principles. We know that, as a matter of the survival of the human race, unilateralism must yield to multilateralism. Each of us has the responsibility and the gift to work within our sphere to construct a world where all may survive and thrive in peace and justice. We must work tirelessly for ratification or accession to the Rome Statute."

* ICC can balance need for justice and practical peace "Justice or expediency in Sudan?; The International Criminal Court". The Economist. 19 July 2008 - "Only this week Indonesia and Timor-Leste published a report blaming the Indonesian army for the atrocities committed in the former East Timor. But, to keep the peace, there is no hint of bringing anyone to trial. None of the big shots who oversaw apartheid ever faced serious punishment. Till recently, dictators who ordered thousands of "disappearances" in Latin America's dirty wars were allowed to slip into easeful retirement. Terrorists in Northern Ireland and Palestine have been forgiven their crimes in return for desisting. Such decisions are never easy: just ask the victims. But the hunger for peace will occasionally trump the appetite for justice if forgiveness and amnesty are the only way to end wars or move societies from dictatorship to democracy. Where does that leave the high hopes that accompanied the creation of the ICC ten years ago? Still strong, we believe. Examples of justice denied do not mean that this noble enterprise is doomed to fail. A court on its own cannot bring either peace or justice."
 
* UN SC can block ICC prosecutions for security reasons Benjamin B. Ferencz, J.D. Harvard 1943 and a Former Nuremberg War Crimes Prosecutor. "Response to Henry Kissinger's essay 'The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction'." 2 July 2001 - "The Security Council can block prosecutions indefinitely if needed for reconciliation or peace."

* ICC justice offers more lasting peace than ad hoc courts Amnesty International. The International Criminal Court, Fact Sheet - "The ICC ensures that those who commit serious human rights violations are held accountable. Justice helps promote lasting peace, enables victims to rebuild their lives and sends a strong message that perpetrators of serious international crimes will not go unpunished."

* ICC needed for new global problems Benjamin B. Ferencz, J.D. Harvard 1943 and a Former Nuremberg War Crimes Prosecutor. "Response to Henry Kissinger's essay 'The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction'." 2 July 2001 - "Opponents of the ICC refuse to recognize that in today's interdependent world all major problems are global and require global solutions. Binding international rules have become necessary and are accepted universally to protect the common interest. The prevention of massive crimes against humanity deserves equal protection of universal law."
 
* ICC is the best tool for fighting genocide and war crimes Roger Cohen. "A Court for a New America". New York Times. 3 Dec. 2008 - "After the terrible decade of the 1990s, with its genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda and the loss there of a million lives while the United States and its allies dithered, it is unconscionable that America not stand with the institution that constitutes the most effective legal deterrent to such crimes [...] The International Criminal Court has filed charges against alleged war criminals in Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Sudan since it started work in 2002. The first trial, involving a Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, is set to begin in January."

* ICC and rule of law help deter war crimes and genocide Amnesty International. The International Criminal Court, Fact Sheet - "[The ICC] will serve as a permanent deterrent to people considering these crimes. In most cases in the last 50 years, international mechanisms to prosecute people accused of these crimes have been set up only after the crimes were committed"
 
ICC courts uphold individual rights and due process Wes Rist. "The Conservative Case for the International Criminal Court Six Years In". Jurist. 10 Dec. 2008 - "Finally, there are some valid due process concerns relating to the operation of the Rome Statute. While the process provisions of the Rome Statute (Article 67, among others) are not exact copies of US constitutional protections, they hardly create the possibility of an unfair or impartial trial. In fact, the rights spelled out for defendants throughout the entirety of the Rome Statute are some of the strongest criminal defendant protections put in place for any international tribunal and they certainly rise to the level of meeting the judicial guarantees provided for by the Geneva Conventions and international human rights laws such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
 
ICC is not historically comparable to the Nuremberg tribunal Gary T. Dempsey. "Reasonable Doubt: The Case Against the Proposed International Criminal Court". CATO Institute. 16 July 1998 - "It is common for proponents of the ICC to argue that it will function like a permanent Nuremberg tribunal.2 In fact, the city of Nuremberg, where 21 Nazis stood trial for their role in the deaths of more than 20 million people, is mounting a serious campaign to be the permanent home of the proposed court.3 Yet according to John R. Bolton, former assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, the Nuremberg comparison does not withstand close inspection: "Whenever the idea of a war crimes tribunal is raised, Nuremberg is the model invariably cited. But an international criminal court [will be] nothing like Nuremberg."4 Consider how the Nuremberg trials actually worked. They followed the unconditional military and political surrender of the Axis powers. Prospective defendants were already in custody, and extensive documentary and physical evidence was readily available. Moreover, the Allies shared a common vision of what the postoccupation government should look like, and the defeated peoples endorsed the legitimacy of the war crimes process. Simply reciting that history shows how different Germany and the Nuremberg tribunal were from contemporary cases, like Bosnia and the Yugoslavia tribunal."
 
Without a constitution, ICC cannot adequately protect rights John R. Bolton. "The United States and the International Criminal Court". Remarks to the Federalist Society. 14 Nov. 2002 - "The ICC does not, and cannot, fit into a coherent, international structural "constitutional" design that delineates clearly how laws are made, adjudicated or enforced, subject to popular accountability and structured to protect liberty. There is no such design, nor should there be. Instead, the Court and the Prosecutor are simply "out there" in the international system. Requiring the United States to be bound by this treaty, with its unaccountable Prosecutor and its unchecked judicial power, is clearly inconsistent with American standards of constitutionalism. This is a macro-constitutional issue for us, not simply a narrow, technical point of law."
 
The U.S. opposed the ICC from the beginning, surprising and disappointing many people. Human rights organizations and social justice groups around the world, and from within the US, were very critical of the U.S. stance given its dominance in world affairs.

The U.S. did eventually signed up to the ICC just before the December 2000 deadline to ensure that it would be a State Party that could participate in decision-making about how the Court works. However,

By May 2002, the Bush Administration unsigned the Rome Statute.
The U.S. threatened to use military force if U.S. nationals were held at the Hague
The U.S. continues to pressure many countries to sign agreements not to surrender U.S. citizens to the ICC.
 
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