The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a court in need of a win. Established in 2002, one hundred and twenty-five states signed on. But the most powerful and populous countries — the United States, China, India and Russia, to name a few — chose to snub it.
Not only has the US ignored the ICC, it has practically waged war against it. A US federal law authorizes the President of the United States to use “all means necessary” to secure the release of all US elected or appointed officials or military personnel from detention by the ICC, including the use of direct military force. There is also a proposal to impose sanctions against foreign individuals who cooperate with the ICC.
The ICC has also been made to look inutile before the world. The arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and others for alleged war crimes in Ukraine have not only been mooned by Russia, but she retaliated by issuing arrest warrants against ICC prosecutors and judges. To rub salt on the wound, Putin made a state visit to Mongolia, an ICC member-state, which thumbed its nose at the ICC and refused to honor the arrest warrant against Putin. Instead, full state honors were extended to him.
The arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also in vain. And the Mossad (Israel’s version of the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA) executed reprisals on ICC prosecutors by placing them under constant surveillance. Not only that, but France, a member state, refused to enforce the warrant on Netanyahu, saying that as an incumbent head of state he had immunity.
As if that weren’t enough, members such as Hungary, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have announced their withdrawal from the Rome Statute, citing a double standard, among other things. This after the Philippines repudiated the ICC.
Scandals involving ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo (accused of serious ethical violations), the illegal arrest of Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo, a sex scandal involving ICC prosecutor Karim Khan where his successor Fatou Bensouda was also involved, have done nothing to shore up the ICC’s diminishing reputation and relevance.
That is why the ICC needs Rodrigo Duterte in the same way that a cocaine addict needs more stuff for his next fix. Fortunately for the ICC — even after the Philippines had exited the Rome Statute — it could count on the weird leadership style of Duterte’s successor, who chose to still cooperate with the court to the extent of riding roughshod over our Constitution and extradition laws and illegally delivering up the popular former president for detention in the Netherlands.
So definitely, as the ICC continues on its unstoppable journey into irrelevance, it cannot give up its last card, the final quiver in its arrow that is Duterte. It needs to show something for the billions it asks for to fund the fat salaries of its officials and staff. That is why I was not hopeful the ICC would release the former president.
But in refusing Duterte’s bid for temporary liberty, the ICC has further ruined its chances of Filipinos being receptive to a return to the Rome Statute. Worse, it has shown itself to be a political — not a judicial — body providing another weapon for the world liberal agenda.
It has but courted disaster.