Megalomania in the ICC

Few outsiders know more (or write more intelligently) on Sudan than Alex de Waal. Today he eloquently rips into the ICC:

The ICC arrest warrant against President Omar al Bashir heralds a new era
for global governance and human rights. But it is not at all clear what will be
the character of this new era. Is Luis Moreno Ocampo the vanguard of the human
rights international, bringing a new dawn of justice and accountability, in
which tyrants quiver at the prospect of the fearless prosecutor, speaking for
the voiceless victims, armed only with the precious norms of universal human
rights? Or is the Prosecutor a stormtrooper for judicial neo-colonalism, kicking
down the doors of others’ hard-won independent sovereignties, brushing aside the
protests of peace mediators, to demand the unconditional surrender and
handcuffing of those without the protection of a superpower?

Let me argue that the Bashir arrest warrant is something else—a moment
of crisis in the project of building a global human rights order. The immediate
cause of this is Moreno Ocampo’s overreach. Possibly his status as a celebrity
prosecutor, feted by the Hollywood stars who have converged on the Darfur
crisis, led him astray.

Read the full post. It’s worth it.