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International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court Perhaps, like many people, you support the basic idea of better global governance, but you don’t believe such idealist goals are realistic. In the 1990s as the world witnessed the brutal violence of genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the World Federal Movement, (of whom we are an affiliate) led a coalition of over 2000 NGOs to press for the creation of the world’s first International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite the opposition of many powerful governments, the court was created in 1998. It was a major victory for human rights and for the power of individual action. So what is the ICC? The ICC is an international court, established by a diplomatic conference in Rome in 1998, that came into existence in July of 2002 and exists to prosecute the most serious violations of human rights. The court is based in the Hague, Holland and its founding treaty has been ratified by 98 governments (as of March 2005). The court has an independent prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who has the capacity to conduct his own investigations. The ICC began investigating its first cases in Uganda, including abuses by the Lords Resistance Army, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In March of 2005 the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan to the ICC. What crimes can it prosecute? The court can prosecute the crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is also envisaged that the court will eventually prosecute the crime of aggression but governments have so far been unable to agree a definition of what will constitute aggression. Definitions of these crimes are detailed in articles 6,7 and 8 of the ICC treaty. Genocide, as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention, concerns actions or a conspiracy to “destroy in whole or in part” a group, such as defined by nation, race, religion or ethnicity. War crimes and crimes against humanity encompass a range of offences, such as using chemical weapons, attacking civilians and enslaving people. The ICC treaty has made a particular contribution to tackling gender-based crimes or sexual violence, such as using rape as instrument of war, building on the legal precedents established by the Tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. Why and how were world federalists involved? The international world federal movement (WFM) coordinated one of the largest citizens coalitions in history – the Coalition for the International Criminal Court – in support of the creation of the ICC. Across the globe federalist groups in many countries worked with women’s organisations, human rights groups, academics, lawyers and other citizens to promote the treaty to their national governments. In the UK world federalists lobbied the Foreign Office to ratify the treaty and participated in the Rome conference itself. Who, where and when can it prosecute? The court can only prosecute nationals of ratified state parties (i.e those countries who have joined the court) or nationals who are on the territory of a state party. The court is not retro-active, meaning that it cannot investigate cases of alleged crimes committed before July 2002 (when the treaty entered into force.) So the ICC will not try to arrest people for incidents that occurred previously – such as the 1976 Soweto Massacre in South Africa for example. So far, only about half of the world’s countries are signed up to the court, meaning that the ICC has no power to take action in many parts of the world without the express consent of the Security Council. World federalists think the court’s rules should be universal and we would like to see all countries supporting an end to impunity for crimes against humanity. If you agree, perhaps you might take action yourself….
Links: CICC
– The Coalition for the International Criminal Court: ICC
– The International Criminal Court The
Rome Statute - Treaty of the International Criminal Court
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