Alex de Waal continues to provide the most thoughtful public commentary on the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The International Criminal Court faces political realities today that were not anticipated when the Rome Statute was so laboriously negotiated a decade ago. It’s commonly the case that an international institution develops in ways that its founders didn’t foresee—the UN itself is a prime example.
While the immediate challenge to the ICC derives from Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s public application for an arrest warrant against President Omar al Bashir, more fundamental issues are also surfacing.
The full post is worth reading. Especially interesting, I thought, was this point:
What is the jurisdiction of the Court over a country that has not ratified the Rome Statute? It is a fundamental tenet of international law that no state can be bound by a treaty to which it is not party. Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute (and it’s unlikely that it will any time soon) and its rejection of the ICC is based on this.
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