Yes, the International Criminal Court is Important, Impressive and Increasingly Effective

Map of ICC member states

There’s a lot of negativity in international relations over various institutions: “the UN is a corrupt institution that has no claim to legitimacy”; “the World Bank is evil”; “the ICC is a hollow body that doesn’t really do anything and has no power.”

Of course, all of these assertions are ridiculous. In this post I’d like to say a little something about the ICC in particular.

The ICC, not yet a decade old, is currently conducting investigations in four different crisis situations – Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Northern Uganda. While most of the legal responsibilities lie with the member states, the ICC has itself indicted fourteen people and has a number of ongoing trials and investigations. It has 110 full member states with some 40 other nations that have signed the Rome Statute that created the ICC but have yet to ratify it.

There are barriers to its increasing legitimacy and effectiveness, there is no doubt. Seven of the indicted individuals remain free, including the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, who was the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC. Major global powers including the United States, China, Russia, and India, are critical of the ICC. The United States actually signed the Rome Statute and then, in an unprecedented decision, ‘unsigned’ in 2002.

Yet keep in mind that despite not being a member, the Obama administration has shown much a much more positive approach to the ICC. Earlier this year the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said that the ICC “looks to become an important and credible instrument for trying to hold accountable the senior leadership responsible for atrocities committed in the Congo, Uganda, and Darfur.” In the case of Darfur, it was the Security Council – with China, Russia and the US – who agreed to refer the crisis to the ICC. The Council also didn’t prevent the ICC from indicting al-Bashir, something it was under intense pressure to do.

Last May, Munyaneza was convicted in Canada for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes committed in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

There has also been significant domestic legal changes and investigations as a result of the ICC. Consider the announcement that the RCMP in Canada has charged Jacques Mungwarere with genocide under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Mungwarere is now the second individual in Canada to be tried under that law. Last May, Désiré Munyaneza was convicted of two counts of genocide, two counts of crimes against humanity, and three counts of war crimes for his role in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

What’s the link to the ICC? The CAHWCA was legislated in 2000 as a responsibility Canada accepted when it signed the Rome Statute in 1998 creating the ICC. It thus has the responsibility to bring to justice anyone accused of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.

It is not inconsequential that this has occurred twice already in Canada alone. After WWII many perpetrators of the worst of the Nazi’s crimes escaped, particularly to South America. Criminals of the vilest faculties like Adolf Eichmann, who has been referred to as the ‘architect of the Holocaust’, Josef Mengele, the literally evil scientist whose expirement on concentration camp inmates led to his nickname, ‘the Angel of Death’, and Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon’, all escaped Germany and spent decades in South America. Mengele was never brought to justice and died in Brazil.

A successful ICC can prevent the criminals of human conscience from escaping justice, and the Canadian cases are proving just that. Next time you think to say “the ICC doesn’t matter”, think twice. Next time you hear someone say “it’s just a hollow body without any power”, let them know how silly that is.