IJCentral: International Justice Central

Fortunately, the reason for Memorial Day in the United States is not overlooked. Celebrations tend not to overshadow the fact that this holiday is a day of remembrance for the millions of individuals who serve the United States, and sadly, the millions that have died for the United States. It honors those living and those departed so they themselves, their sacrifice, and the reasons for their sacrifice are not forgotten. Some of the reasons that they served were to protect and uphold our most sacred values and principles, such as “peace,” “security,” “rule of law,” and “justice.” These same principles reside by word and sentiment in America’s most cherished documents: the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

These precise words and sentiments are also found in the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first permanent international tribunal created to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. On July 1, 2012, the ICC celebrates its tenth anniversary. All three of these documents share a gravity of purpose and achievement, each breaking new ground in order to attain the previously unthinkable.

The Declaration of Independence claimed the undeniable rights of humans, both individually and collectively, to protect their interests and create for themselves. Celebrating its 225th anniversary this year, the U.S. Constitution showed the power of the written document to establish a just rule of law and to strike a balance of governmental powers. The Rome Statute recognized the duty of sovereigns, also both individually and collectively, to act when unimaginable horrors are visited upon the human family, and prosecute their perpetrators with the utmost respect for due process. The Rome Statute at its core and in practice honors the tenants of these American precedents.

In this tenth year of the ICC, it is an appropriate time to take stock of the Court’s progress in its primary mission: end impunity through the just rule of law. Thus far, assessments of the ICC are varied to say the least, from the unfair and unrealistic, and the critical, yet contextual, to the reasonable and measured. How the Court can be both satisfactory to some, a concern to others, and both to many is a matter of differing politics and viewpoints as well as a testament to the Court’s mixed record. For some, the ICC is failing as it took six years to finish its first trial, several Prosecution indictments failed to receive judicial approval due to insufficient evidence, and the ICC’s Africa-centric caseload shows that it is a neo-colonial institution employing “selective justice” to eliminate disfavored African leaders. Others respond by pointing out that the Pretrial Chamber’s pushback on Prosecution indictments proves that the Court’s safeguards against political or questionable prosecutions are working. Further that many of the African situations at the ICC are the product of self-referrals by African states themselves or UN Security Council referrals. More importantly, supporters of the ICC argue that the Court has quickly attained legitimate status on the international stage, instead of being relegated to irrelevance as predicted by some.

The assortment of opinions and analyses of the ICC will continue through this year of reflection, and this exercise is to be embraced. The first milestone anniversary of the Court offers an important opportunity for ICC stakeholders to convene and have honest discussion about where the Court succeeded, and where more work is to be done. The recent Stanford Law School’s Conference on the tenth Anniversary of the ICC was the first such conference in the United States where frank conversation could occur. This conference entitled “ICC Turns Ten: Reviewing the Past, Assessing the Future” brought together an impressive lineup of panelists from the ICC’s principal organs—the Presidency, the Registry, and the Office of the Prosecutor—as well as from the United States government, academia, and civil society.

Read whole article on Huffington Post here.