Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

International Criminal Court, abolition of the
Section G. Crime and punishment

The International Criminal Court (ICC) came into being on 1 July 2002. Located in The Hague, the ICC is intended to prosecute the most important war criminals, replacing special regional tribunals for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone that had represented the world’s first attempt at taking a strong stand against the most heinous atrocities. There are three routes by which a case can come to the court. First, if the crime took place in one of the states that are parties to the case. Second, if the accused is a national of a state that is a party to the case. Third, if it is referred by the UN Security Council. At the time of writing, of 30 people indicted by the ICC, 13 remain at large, 7 are being held before trial, 4 have been acquitted, 2 are appealing convictions, 2 are on trial, and 2 have died.

Pros

[1] The ICC is a violation of national sovereignty. Criminal law is the responsibility of individual states, which should be able to decide when to punish their citizens. The ICC violates that, especially because states do not even have to sign up, but can be ’referred’ by the UN Security Council.

[2] The ICC is often unable to secure a conviction. Of six prosecutions to date, four have resulted in acquittals, and two are on appeal. In 2012, Thomas Lubanga was only sentenced to 14 years in prison for war crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo because the prosecutors could not make all their charges against him stick. This makes the ICC pointless, insulting to victims and unable to do justice.

[3] The ICC is too rigid in its pursuit of justice over peace. Often, prosecutions, rather than ending a conflict, simply perpetuate it and revive old wounds. Moreover, they inhibit the possibility of using amnesties to end conflicts. Joseph Kony (the Ugandan leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army) fled peace talks because he was indicted by the ICC; Laurent Gbagbo (President of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011) would have stepped down peacefully had he been guaranteed that he would not face prosecution, but ICC rules did not allow it.

[4] The ICC comes across to victims as Western justice; the majority of their voices are never heard, because it is located in The Hague, not their homelands. Moreover, by focusing not on the actual crimes, but the need to score political points by getting any kind of prosecution, it misses the extent of the harm. Lubanga’s conviction was only for using child soldiers, a minor component of the devastation he wreaked in the DRC.

Cons

[1] National sovereignty is not absolute, and does not extend to cases where states are ’unable or unwilling’ to prosecute the worst crimes on earth, which are the only occasions on which the ICC intervenes. Moreover, in most cases, the ICC mainly intervenes in cases where national governments have requested assistance (like Uganda) or the perpetrators are abroad (e.g. the prosecution of Jean-Pierre Bemba who fled to the Central African Republic after committing crimes in Eastern Congo).

[2] The ICC is far from incompetent. First, some acquittals are to be expected; that is how criminal justice works. Second, although slow to get off the ground, it only has jurisdiction over post- 2002 crimes, so in its early years it was effectively waiting for crimes to occur. Now it prosecutes frequently, and will only get better at it.

[3] Apolitical justice is a necessity in postconflict societies, especially where national judiciaries may be perceived as biased and unfair. For example, in Kenya after the 2008 election violence, referring people on both political sides to the ICC was a key component of the peace deal.

[4] International Criminal Court justice is not Western at all; crimes against humanity are so severe as to be seen as such regardless of cultural background. Moreover, most atrocity victims want a strong seal of international condemnation on their oppressors, which the ICC provides.

Possible motions

This House believes that war crimes are a global responsibility.

This House would abolish the ICC.

Related topics

Pacifism

Dictators, assassination of