It never ceases to amaze me when putatively educated people betray their ignorance about the mission of and proceedings at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This ignorance stems from the fact that the ICC gets so little coverage in Western media, especially here in the United States. This coverage stems from the fact that, since it was established in 1998, the ICC has targeted African leaders for war crimes prosecutions. And this targeting stems from the fact that the world’s most powerful leaders enjoy a presumption of immunity. That former US President George W. Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair never faced trial for the alleged war crimes they committed in Iraq substantiates this last point.
Incidentally, for the record, the ICC’s mission is to prosecute (select) persons charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
That said, the collapse of its latest prosecution came as no surprise.
Judges at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday threw out post-election violence charges against Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto. …
A similar case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta collapsed last year. …
Judges halted the trial before Ruto’s defense lawyers opened their case, ruling that prosecutors had failed to marshal enough incriminating evidence.
(Reuters, April 6, 2016)
Frankly, the incompetence of ICC prosecutors is such that they probably couldn’t even convict ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of war crimes.
I should note here that the ICC is not part of the United Nations’ mishmash of international courts and tribunals. Not that the UN’s imprimatur ensures credibility or competence, mind you. Indeed, just weeks ago, its International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) handed down a verdict against Serbian nationalist Vojislav Seselj that threw this into shocking relief:
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal has acquitted Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj on all nine counts that UN prosecutors filed against him in his marathon trial…
[H]e had spent more than a decade in custody at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia…
Seselj reportedly said he would seek 14 million euros in damages from the court in The Hague for his time spent there.
(Aljazeera, March 31, 2016)
Unsurprisingly, Seselj’s victims across the Balkans, who could and did bear witness to his many war crimes, reacted in utter disbelief, disgust, and disillusionment.
The problem, of course, is that the Nuremberg trials set an unsustainable precedent. After all, the circumstances following World War II were such that victorious Allied leaders could have summarily executed defeated Axis leaders and nobody would have complained. Absent similar circumstances, however, setting up international courts and tribunals to prosecute anyone is fraught with imperial presumptions and biases.
My abiding belief is that any person accused of war crimes should be tried in the country where he allegedly committed his crimes – complete with local prosecutors and judges. This is not the commentary to elaborate. But just consider the obvious reasons France is seeking extradition of the Belgian who masterminded the November bombings in Paris.
I have written a series of commentaries over the years not only decrying the ICC’s neocolonial approach to prosecutions, but also lamenting its prosecutorial incompetence.
Therefore, I shall suffice at this point to share excerpts from a few of them. They should explain why I think the ICC should be abolished.
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- From “Alas, the ICC Charging Bashir of Sudan with Genocide Means Nothing!” July 15, 2008:
It is critical to note that neither the United States nor Sudan has ratified this treaty. Which means that the only country that would even dare to arrest Bashir on these charges does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction.
- From “ICC Double Standards…” June 29, 2011:
It is hardly surprising that, far from being cowered by ICC arrest warrants, Bashir and Gaddafi have reacted to them with unbridled contempt. But there’s no gainsaying their complaint that the ICC amounts to little more than a tool Europeans use to prosecute leaders of African countries, as well as those of small and relatively powerless countries like the former Yugoslavia.
Exhibit A in support of their complaint is the fact that no arrest warrants have been issued for Chinese leaders for their genocidal crackdown on Tibet’s Buddhist intifada in 2008, to say nothing of their notorious Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
From “Uhuru Kenyatta, Son of Kenya’s Founding Father, Indicted on War Crimes,” January 24, 2012:
I wonder what evidence the ICC possesses that ties Uhuru and the three other prominent Kenyans it indicted to the rapes and murders that were committed. And am I the only one who finds it a little too convenient that, of the four indicted, two of them supported President Kibaki (namely Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura) and two supported opposition leader Odinga (namely former Education Minister William Ruto and radio presenter Joshua arap Sang)?
Frankly, this seems a contrived attempt by the ICC to forestall more score-settling and communal violence by saying, in effect, a pox on both your houses.
What’s more, I doubt any of these men had any hands-on involvement in any of the violence at issue. And if the charges stem just from inciting and organizing what the BBC described as ‘a bloody round of score-settling and communal violence,’ then surely no two people are more responsible than Kibaki and Odinga themselves. Which makes this rather like blaming Hitler’s generals but not Hitler himself, no?
- From “Liberian President Charles Taylor Convicted in The Hague,” April 27, 2012:
If Taylor of Liberia can be hauled to The Hague and tried for aiding and abetting atrocities that were committed in Sierra Leone, why shouldn’t Putin of Russia face the same fate for aiding and abetting similar atrocities now being committed in Syria?
- From “No Equitable Justice in ICC Prosecuting Kenya’s Kenyatta,” March 25, 2013:
It now seems my suspicions about the ICC’s evidence were wholly warranted. Because on March 11, 2013, the ICC dropped all charges against Uhuru’s co-defendant, Francis Mathaura, citing the lack of credibility of its star witness.
More important, though, given that the ICC based its indictment against Uhuru primarily on this same witness’s testimony, it can only be a matter of time before prosecutors swallow their pride and drop all charges against him too…
Prosecutors insist they have other witnesses who can testify to hearing Uhuru order Kibaki supporters to attack Odinga supporters. But this still begs the question: If the witness intimidation that forced the ICC to dismiss charges against Muthaura ‘is ongoing [and] will get more serious,’ isn’t it more likely than not that such intimidation will succeed in compromising the testimony of any witness against Uhuru? After all, he is not only the richest man in Kenya but now the most powerful one too, having been elected as its new president earlier this month.
I am willing to bet my life savings that President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta will never … serve a day in jail.
From “International Criminal Court Lost All Credibility,” June 5, 2013:
My commentaries are replete with condemnation of the kleptomaniacal and genocidal thugs who have lorded, for far too long, over far too many countries in post-colonial Africa. But there’s no denying that thugs of a different sort have lorded, for far too long, over far too many countries on every other continent as well…
I am heartened that Africa now has a new crop of reputable and respected leaders who are echoing my condemnation of both African despots and ICC prosecutors…
I urge you to bear in mind that nobody called for the racist fiends who ruled the United States from slavery to Jim Crow to be hauled before any international criminal court for the systematic crimes against humanity they committed (or orchestrated).
Therefore, I submit that, just as America has done since its founding, African countries should be left alone to figure out how to prosecute and imprison (if called for) any leader who commits an impeachable offense. And remember, it took a bloody civil war the likes of which the world had never seen for American leaders to just begin abiding by their constitutional principles of democracy and freedom.
- From “African Leaders Defy ICC to Defend Kenya’s Kenyatta,” October 15, 2013:
It’s one thing for the ICC to prosecute a diamonds/drugs warlord turned president like Charles Taylor of Liberia; it’s quite another to prosecute Kenyatta. After all, he’s not only the son of a man who is arguably even more revered throughout Africa than Nelson Mandela, he’s now the sitting, legitimately elected president of Kenya.
This is why it came as no surprise when the African Union convened an extraordinary session last weekend to decide whether member states should withdraw en masse from the ICC’s jurisdiction…
The AU … resolved that …no African head of state shall appear before any international court.
- And from “ICC Decides Not to Prosecute Kenya’s Kenyatta. Duh,” December 8, 2014:
I fully expect the ICC to decide not to prosecute Kenyatta’s other co-defendant, Deputy President William Ruto, for the same reasons it decided not to prosecute Mathaura and Kenyatta. Not least because it would say far more about the ICC’s lack of credibility than Ruto’s guilt if it proceeds in the circumstances.
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I rest my case … against the ICC.
Related commentaries:
ICC Kenyatta…
ICC Gaddafi…
ICC Bashir…
African leaders defy ICC to defend Kenyatta
ICC Decides…