Buy Tom's Books
  • Great Powers: America and the World After Bush
    Great Powers: America and the World After Bush
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett
  • Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating
    Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett
  • The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century
    The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett
  • Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World: Comparing the Strategies of Ceausescu and Honecker
    Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World: Comparing the Strategies of Ceausescu and Honecker
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett
  • The Emily Updates (Vol. 1): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    The Emily Updates (Vol. 1): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    by Vonne M. Meussling-Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett
  • The Emily Updates (Vol. 2): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    The Emily Updates (Vol. 2): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett, Vonne M. Meussling-Barnett
  • The Emily Updates (Vol. 3): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    The Emily Updates (Vol. 3): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett, Vonne M. Meussling-Barnett
  • The Emily Updates (Vol. 4): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    The Emily Updates (Vol. 4): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    by Thomas P.M. Barnett, Vonne M. Meussling-Barnett
  • The Emily Updates (Vol. 5): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    The Emily Updates (Vol. 5): One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived (The Emily Updates (Vols. 1-5))
    by Vonne M. Meussling-Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Emily V. Barnett
Search the Site
Powered by Squarespace
Monthly Archives
« The ultimate in disconnectedness | Main | The V versus U versus W recoveries: the verdicts are in? »
12:05AM

How goes the International Criminal Court?

Economist editorial and article.

As usual, the mag argues that the court, despite low expectations for effectiveness and high expectations for useless meddling in the superpower affairs of America, "has not done too badly."

The ICC has laid bare important facts about forgotten wars (all Gap).  It has issued 13 indictments (all Gap). No, it hasn't nabbed Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, but it has put him on notice, and yeah, that counts when you're trying to build up new rules.  111 countries have signed up, and most have signed some sort of immunity agreement with the U.S., in effect acknowledging our sheriff role and the credibility of US military justice.

America signed the treaty but did not ratify--a rare achievement.  Most non-members, like India, Indonesia and China, simply never signed.

The Economist laments an upcoming review of the ICC being held in Uganda, because on the agenda sits some promised exploration of the notion of punishing state-on-state aggression (the old League of Nations dream) instead of just remaining focused on the crimes against humanity.  If the notion should be explicitly expanded in any direction, it should be about terrorism, which is on the rise, instead of state-on-state wars, which are going the way of the dinosaur.

Pinning down a definition of all war as crime was denounced most elegantly, says the editorial, by Sir Austen Chamberlain in 1928 (Brit Foreign Secretary) when he said that such an effort would end up creating a "trap for the innocent and a signpost for the guilty."

In other words, by circumscribing the limits of criminal aggression, the world would seem to be permitting all that lay outside those limits.

In other words, the ICC would effectively undo everything it's done, which is highlight government crimes against their own peoples.

We live in a world of transnational terrorism and civil strife; the ICC should focus on both and not the past.

References (4)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>