Crime check : failure

A rather perfunctory trudge for years led to the creation of International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 1998. While 120 nations adopted the Rome Statute, seven countries including US and China voted against it.

ICC was a born failure in terms of reach, implementation, funding and cooperation with major world bodies like the World Bank, NATO and UNSC. The vanguards of the institution watered down its effectiveness by making it an independent entity devoid of being a part of the UN, as it finally came into force on July 2002 ratified by 60 nations. The defined areas of crime that ICC deals with are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

However, 13 years since its birth, it has been a rather maudlin story – not even a single conviction has been achieved! Investigations are going on against/on five countries viz. Kenya, Uganda, Central African Republic, DR Congo and Sudan. All of them are from Africa! It shows that the ambit of ICC’s veritable ‘global’ reach is pretty myopic. More surprisingly, out of these five countries, DR Congo, Uganda and Central African Republic have themselves invited ICC to carry out investigations. But irrespective of all that, the litany gains an ironic cherry when seen in the context of the few cases where ICC has acted!

The ICC was requested by UNSC to take up the case of Omar al-Bashir, Sudanese President accused of genocide. However, the institution does not have the legal teeth to arrest Omar al-Bashir. So even after a full-fledged investigation, at most what it could do was to request 111 ‘agreeable’ countries of the ‘arrest warrant’ that ICC had taken out against Al-Bashir! A big problem with ICC is that it lacks enforcement mechanisms and literally is at the mercy of other governments. Worse, apparently the worst budget crunch in ICC’s history is in progress. The 2011 annual budget of ICC is $149 million and there is a proposition of no growth for 2012. Some mention that in that case, ICC may well have to drop the six active cases of investigation.

The problem with global institutions is the lack of autonomy to make decisions on issues of global concerns. And a reason is their dependency on a handful of powerful nations for funds. ICC raising no fingers against Bush/NATO despite their killing 109,000 Iraqis, many more Afghanis is a case in point. These institutions can be effective if they could manage alternative sources of funds, thus retaining their decision independence. As of now, the International Cricket Council seems to be doing a better job at maintaining peace between nations than the ICC.