International Courts Part II of III:International Criminal Court

So far, there are two ad hoc tribunal courts to prosecute international war criminals --those whose crimes are against humanity. They are the International Tribunal Courts established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Soon, the world will be having a permanent court to prosecute criminals of humanity.

The idealism

The future International Criminal Court is envisioned to be the permanent ultimate source of decisions based on the utmost considerations on humanity, human rights, and humanitarian values. The universal ground of its establishment is to establish a mechanism to try those who break the various international laws that prohibit genocide, war crimes, and other forms of crime against humanity.

Despite its performance, the existence of International Tribunal Courts for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is delicate. These ad hoc tribunals require continuous renewals from The United Nations Security Council and their jurisdiction is geographically limited. In light that a permanent criminal court will be able to perform without expiry and without any geographical restriction, its establishment is of utmost importance to ensure that human rights are respected without any reservation.

The establishment of International Criminal Court is pending official ratifications from 60 countries. To this very date (February 8, 2000), there are already six countries that have officially ratified the 1998 Rome Statute http://www.un.org/icc/romestat.htm and 94 others as signatories.

Senegal is the first country that ratified the ICC treaty, the Rome Statute, on February 2, 1999. It was later followed by Trinidad and Tobago (ratified on April 6, 1999), San Marino (ratified on May 13, 1999), Italy (July 1, 1999), Fiji (November 29, 1999), and Ghana (December 20, 1999). Brazil is the 94th country that signed the treaty on February 7, 2000 by H.E. Gelson Fenseca Jr. The complete list of signatories and ratifications can be located at http://www.iccnow.org/rome/html/ratify.h... .

The Controversies

There are pros and cons on the establishment of International Criminal Court. The United States are among those who -so far-has not ratified nor signed the treaty. Nonetheless, The United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia are among earlier signers.

The controversies reside on several issues:

First, how will the International Criminal Court and its proceedings interfere with a country's sovereignty?

Second, how to ensure that the ICC's officials do not corrupt, or put it in other words, how to ensure that the ICC is free from corruption? As a man's nature, quoted from Lord Acton, "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." A provost body might be required further. This can lead to a possibility to endless escalation to higher judicial bodies in order to ensure international rule of law is respected within the ICC itself.

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