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LESSON PLAN : The ICC -- A Debate

CARTOON ON ICC | ARTICLES ON THE ICC | EU AND THE ICC | SIERRA LEONE AND THE ICC | UNITED STATES AND THE ICC | CANADA AND THE ICC

ARTICLES ON THE ICC

ICC: Rules for Elections are Critical
U.S. Opposition Does Not Hinder Work on War Crimes Court
Human Rights Watch website
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/09/icc0903.htm

(New York, September 3, 2002) The rules for electing the 18 judges and prosecutor for the new International Criminal Court (ICC) must be merit-based and transparent, Human Rights Watch urged today. The historic first meeting of states that have joined the court begins today in New York.

"This is when the world's democracies will sit down and take concrete steps to get the court up and running," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "It's the moment we've all been waiting for."

Representatives from all states that have joined the ICC, known as the Assembly of States Parties, will adopt rules to govern the first election of the judges and the prosecutor of the court. It will also approve the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and the court's first budget.
"The ICC will be the cornerstone of the emerging system of international justice," said Dicker. "The steps taken at this meeting will have an immense impact on how the court functions and what the future will be for justice and human rights worldwide."
Dicker said the election rules should ensure the candidates' highest possible quality and fairest possible representation. He warned against the kind of bargains that have been the hallmark of many United Nations appointments.
"The ICC needs the best-qualified people, men and women, from the broadest range of backgrounds," said Dicker (Director of the International Justice Program - Human Rights Watch). "We need to find the highest common denominator, not the lowest."
The ICC was created to provide justice for the world's worst crimes -- genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In the past, when national judicial systems failed to punish individuals accused of committing these crimes, those responsible faced no consequences for their actions. Now, the ICC will provide the victims of the world's atrocities with a place to turn to when national systems fail.
The court is being set up in the midst of a campaign by the United States to undermine the jurisdiction of the ICC by pressuring states all over the world to sign agreements providing U.S. citizens with immunity from the court. The Bush administration's hostility is at strong odds with its allies and friends around the world who support the court and its objectives. Seventy-eight nations have already ratified the Rome Treaty that will govern the court.
"The international community is demonstrating that the court will withstand Washington's irrational campaign to undermine it," said Dicker.
"It's shocking that the United States is opposing the creation of this new mechanism for justice."

The ICC treaty was adopted in July 1998 at the end of a Diplomatic Conference in Rome, by a vote of 120 to seven. Before the December 31, 2000 deadline, 139 states signed the treaty. The court will have the authority to prosecute the most serious international crimes that are committed after July 1, 2002. The treaty contains numerous safeguards to screen out any politically motivated cases. More states are expected to ratify the treaty soon in order to participate in the election of judges and the prosecutor early next year.

The court's "Advance Team" is already at work in The Hague creating the technical and administrative infrastructure that the court will need to open in 2003, and to commence investigating its first cases. For more information on the International Criminal Court, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/

The International Criminal Court
(From the 'Global Issues that Affect Everyone' website)

"Following World War II, a war crimes tribunal was held in Tokyo to try Japanese political and military leaders. There is no doubt that the defendants were responsible for appalling atrocities, but, as the Indian judge on the tribunal wrote in his dissenting opinion, the victorious allies had themselves committed grave crimes, and the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the most horrific war crimes of the Pacific War. But only the atrocities committed by the Japanese were punished. In short, the war crimes trial represented 'victors' justice." -- From an article reflecting on the The Milosevic Indictment, By Stephen R. Shalom

There has been considerable (and a mostly successful) effort to set up an International Criminal Court (ICC). The purpose is to have a body that can prosecute serious crimes against humanity no matter who committed them and that is able to try people for gross violations of human rights, such as those committed during military conflicts (like Khmer Rouge-style genocide). It would serve to guarantee human rights independently of national governments.

60 ratifications were needed to get the ICC off the ground. This was achieved April 11, 2002. This means that from July 1, 2002 onwards, any acts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity committed after this date can be tried by the Court.

While only the beginning, the road to the 60 ratifications (now over 75) has been full of controversy. In Rome, July 1998, the ICC was given the go-ahead with a vote of 120 to 7. The seven who voted against were USA, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen. All of USA's allies voted for the ICC, while the Unites States were surprisingly very vocally against it and left standing with a list of countries that included those that the U.S. itself has termed as "rogue". Various human rights and social justice groups have long criticized the U.S., which continues to oppose the International Criminal Court, even as it dropped out of the negotiations in May 2002.

In July 2002, the United Nations Security Council came out with a resolution (1422) to exempt peace-keepers from prosecution. Amnesty International described this as "unlawful" saying that, "What the Security Council has done is to attempt to amend a treaty agreed between state parties, a power in this case only given to the Assembly of States Parties. Moreover, the Council is exceeding its powers by seeking to amend a treaty which is fully consistent with the UN Charter. In addition, by invoking Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council has wrongly characterized the US threat to veto peace-keeping operations as either a threat to peace, a breach of peace, or an act of aggression. None of those terms apply to a court created to establish accountability for the worst possible crimes under international law." A lot of pressure for this resolution, Amnesty pointed out, came from the United States and the United Kingdom. Human Rights Watch added that this resolution was weaker than what the U.S. was going for, which was to "to permanently exempt Americans from the reach of the International Criminal Court."