The International Criminal Court

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
Sat. March 18th, 2023

by Frank Newton, Boiling Springs, North Carolina

 

After I heard that the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, had issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin because of his immoral -- or unethical, if you like that word better -- behavior in deporting Ukrainian children from conquered parts of the Ukraine into Russia, I skimmed the Wikipedia article on the International Criminal Court.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT -- POINTS I FOUND MOST INTERESTING

I gleaned these points from the Wikipedia article in English on the International Criminal Court (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court) (I have quoted them out of order):

-- The International Criminal Court was established by treaty adopted at a conference of nations in 1998, at which the treaty "was adopted by a vote of 120 to seven, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the U.S., and Yemen.^[15]"

Wikipedia footnote 15: "Scharf, Michael P. (August 1998). "Results of the Rome Conference for an International Criminal Court" Archived 15 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine. American Society of International Law. Retrieved 4 December 2006."

-- "As of November 2019, 123 [nations]^[52]  are parties to the Statute of the Court, including all the countries of South America, nearly all of Europe, most of Oceania and roughly half of Africa.^[53][54]

Footnote 52: "The sum of (a) states parties, (b) signatories and (c) non-signatory United Nations member states is 195. This number is two more than the number of United Nations member states (193) due to the State of Palestine and Cook Islands being states parties but not United Nations member states." [commentary by Frank Newton: this information is not very exciting, but it suggests that the authors of the Wikipedia article have done pretty much homework.]

Footnote 53:  "United Nations Treaty Database entry regarding the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court". United Nations Treaty Collection. Archived from the original on 18 January 2011. Retrieved 10 March 2010.

Footnote 54: [Same source as footnote 53; but perhaps the link is to a different section in the source.]

 -- "In March 2023, Dmitry Peskov announced the Russian federation doesn't recognize the Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for War crimes.^[49] "

Footnote 49: Patil, Anushka (27 March 2023). "International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 March 2023.

 -- "The Court issued its first judgment in 2012 when it found Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of war crimes related to using child soldiers.^[23]"

Footnote 23:  " "ICC finds Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga guilty". BBC News. 14 March 2012. Archived from the original on 15 October 2014. Retrieved 29 September 2014."

 -- "The United States Department of State argues that there are 'insufficient checks and balances on the authority of the ICC prosecutor and judges' and 'insufficient protection against politicized prosecutions or other abuses'."^[79]

Footnote 79: US Department of State, 30 July 2003. "Frequently Asked Questions About the U.S. Government's Policy Regarding the International Criminal Court (ICC)". Retrieved 1 January 2007.. Retrieved 31 December 2006.

 -- "The ICC has been accused of bias and as being a tool of Western imperialism, only punishing leaders from small, weak states while ignoring crimes committed by richer and more powerful states.[^{317] [318] [319] [320]} This sentiment has been expressed particularly by African leaders due to an alleged disproportionate focus of the Court on Africa, while it claims to have a global mandate; until January 2016, all nine situations which the ICC had been investigating were in African countries.^{[321] [322] [323]} "

[The things which are said in this paragraph are based on seven sources which are listed in seven footnotes, but we are only going to quote the first footnote here. -- Newton]

Footnote 317: " "ICC and Africa – International Criminal Court and African Sovereignty". 11 October 2012. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016.

 -- "During the 1970s and 1980s, international human rights and humanitarian Nongovernmental Organizations (or NGOs) began to proliferate at exponential rates. Concurrently, the quest to find a way to punish international crimes shifted from being the exclusive responsibility of legal experts to being shared with international human rights activism." [quoted from the section of the article called "Nongovernmental organizations"]

 -- The President of the International Criminal Court from 2009 to 2015 was a judge from Korea named Song Sang-hyun.  The current President of the Court is Piotr Hofmański from Poland.

[The source for this is the section of the Wikipedia article called "Presidency."  It includes a picture of former President Song.]

 -- Wikipedia states that the International Criminal Court is different from the International Court of Justice.  Wikipedia's article on this other court (the Internation Court of Justice) says "The International Court of Justice (ICJ . . .), sometimes known as the World Court,^[1] is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN).^[2] It settles disputes between states in accordance with international law and gives advisory opinions on international legal issues. The ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between countries, with its rulings and opinions serving as primary sources of international law (subject to Article 59 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice)."

Wikipedia footnote 1 in the article on the ICJ: "Nations, United. "International Court of Justice". United Nations. Archived from the original on 26 November 2021. Retrieved 29 August 2020."

[commentary by Frank Newton: This footnote should have begun "United Nations."  Not "Nations, United."  Names of people who are authors are inverted in bibliographies, so that the last name comes first.  But names of organizations are not inverted in bibliographies.]

 "Unlike the International Court of Justice, the ICC is legally independent from the United Nations."

[This quotation begins the section entitled "Relationships" within the Wikipedia article on the ICC.]

DISCUSSION AND OPINION BY FRANK NEWTON

 Reading between the lines of the Wikipedia article, I believe the International Criminal Court has no officers of enforcement.

It seems to me that the ICC is trying to operate as a conscience for the nations.  I support that endeavor.

The hymn "Christ is the World's True Light" with words by George Wallace Briggs ends with the words "The world has waited long, has travailed long in pain; To heal its ancient wrong, come, Prince of Peace, and reign."  I believe that God calls persons to help push forward His goals on the planet Earth, even though our species is a notoriously fragile vessel for carrying out the will of God.  For healing wrongs both ancient and modern, I believe that worshippers of God and atheists alike have God's permission to try and move the world to a higher level of justice, while we wait for the coming again of the Prince of Peace.  That is why I support the goals and ideals of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The ICC is not equal to the ICJ.  They are two different courts.  It appears that the ICJ hears cases against nations, while the ICC hears cases against individual persons of violating the human rights of other people.  Neither court's verdicts are enforceable, as far as I can tell.  And both courts are headquartered in The Hague in the Netherlands, as it appears (which is neither a good thing nor a bad thing to me, but an acceptable thing).  But I support the work of both courts.  The world cannot make any progress at all except by starting with baby steps.  These two courts are baby steps in the right direction, in my eyes.  Justice is to be preferred to injustice, and abiding by the law is to be preferred to criminal behavior.

CONCLUSION: WHAT IS TRUTH?

I am a huge admirer of Wikipedia.  As a child, I loved the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  As a white-haired man, I love Wikipedia. 

We live in a world where information is very fragile.  Information doesn't travel very well from one household to another.  A lot of times, when someone tries to transfer information from one household to another, it is spoiled, and smells bad, when it arrives.

Some people do not find Wikipedia credible.  I am proud to be on Wikipedia's side.  I believe Wikipedia makes a determined effort to get at the truth, and to report the truth carefully, and to explain the nuances of the truth (the complexities of the world we live in) as plainly as anyone is able to explain them.

Our goal when we talk to people of the opposite political party should be to avoid sarcasm and to try to understand what the other side holds as their core beliefs and why they hold those beliefs to be self-evident.  The first step is avoiding sarcasm.  Avoiding sarcasm when talking to people of the opposite political party is the all-important first baby step on the road to restrengthening the United States of America.

The "truth that will set you free" (those words are almost a quotation from Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 8 verse 32) includes religious truth, BUT, in the opinion of Frank Newton, it also includes the truth about what crimes have been committed and who committed them, and it also includes the truth about how we can nudge our whole planet towards a more perfect union.  God has not equipped us with infallible truth sensors, but we have to use our truth sensors to the best of our ability.

by Frank Newton, Boiling Springs, North Carolina