IJCentral: International Justice Central

These are tense days for supporters of the International Criminal Court.  We have to stand by and watch as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir flouts the arrest warrants issued for him by the ICC on March 4, charging him with crimes against humanity.  He has responded by expelling 13 international humanitarian groups from Sudan and shutting down 3 Sudanese humanitarian groups (apparently, according to a source who works coordinating relief organizations, Malaysian humanitarian groups are trying to fill the gap but don’t have the resources, neither logistical or financial). Then al-Bashir traveled to Eritrea, Egypt, Lybia and now to Qatar for the Arab League summit in Doha.

One of the main forces building against the ICC is the ‘Arab street’, because the perception that the ICC is targeting Africa and the Arab world, but not Israeli aggressions in Lebanon and Gaza, is gaining ground.  No matter that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israel and Lebanon and Gaza since they have not ratified the Rome Statute - neither is Sudan a member, and that fact is being used to advantage by enemies of the ICC.  They claim that there is a double standard being applied by the UN Security Council, because they will issue a UNSC resolution to ask that Sudan be investigated for the conflict in Darfur, but do not issue a resolution asking that the ICC investigate the Israel/Hezbollah/Hamas conflicts.  This is a powerful argument, let’s face it, and if the ‘Arab street’ and Arab leaders move to let war criminals like al-Bashir off the hook because of this perceived double-standard, I don’t see how it could be perceived as anything but a setback for the ICC and for hopes of getting more Arab countries to ratify the Rome Statute (the only Arab countries that have ratified are Jordan, Djibouti and Comoros).

I think it would be behoove the world community to have transgressions of international humanitarian law in the Middle East investigated, whether they are coming from Israel, Hezbollah or Hamas. To get such a resolution out of the UNSC is not likely.  It would undoubtedly require UNSC reform, which has a power structure that still reflects the victors of WWII - no member of the P5 (Permanent 5 members of the UNSC, who each have veto power to kill any resolution) should have the power to singlehandedly stop a UNSC resolution - this is a structure that’s become obsolete and needs to be reformed for the sake of UN credibility.