The disappointing legacy of the ICC

The disappointing legacy of the ICC

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Since it came online, the ICC built a record of focusing on crimes committed in the Global South and ignoring those committed by leaders of the West. The evidence was so damning that Many African leaders called for mass exit from the first permanent international criminal court that promised more in terms of holding abusers of human rights to account. Since the statute that powered the court came to force in 2002, prosecutors of the ICC have been eager to indict anyone the West does not like and ignore crimes committed by Western leaders or friends of Western leaders. For example, despite the damning evidence of torture, murder, and unlawful detention of persons since the illegal Western invasion of Iraq in 2003, the ICC did not take any measurable outcome action against the perpetrators of the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and war of aggression—the very crimes that fall under its jurisdiction. Yet, before the war in Ukraine closed its first year, the ICC gathered enough evidence to indict a sitting president. 

This article sheds some light about the corrupting power of money, political interference, and ideological biases that have infected the once promising institution on which many human rights activists pinned much hope.