International Criminal Court Says ISIS Is Out of Its Jurisdiction

[Little Tich]

Source: The New York Times

PARIS — Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said on Wednesday that her office had received ample reports of “crimes of unspeakable cruelty” by the extremists of the Islamic State but that the court had no jurisdiction over Iraq and Syria where the acts occurred or over the group’s leaders.

In a written statement, Ms. Bensouda said that a change in jurisdiction would have to come from decisions outside the court: the United Nations Security Council could ask the court to begin an investigation. Another option, she said, would be for Iraq or Syria, neither of which is a member of the court, to accept the court’s jurisdiction on a temporary basis. But she clearly did not expect this to happen soon.

Her remarks appeared to be a response to the growing pressure on her office to open an investigation into human rights abuses in territory controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Politicians, human rights groups and editorial writers have been calling for action by the international prosecutor, whose limitations and powers are not always well understood.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/world/middleeast/international-criminal-court-says-isis-is-out-of-its-jurisdiction.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[christx30]

1. Then pretty much,

what good is it? It seems like the only people that can be prosecuted are people that volunteer for it? Anyone else can say, "Not today. I have a thing."

[Scootaloo]

2. I know it's shocking to many DU'ers, but international bodies assume equality between nations

This means hte ICC, for isntance, cannot simply stomp into a nation that has not become party to it, and demand compliance.

[yeoman6987]

3. ICC can only press charges in countries

That signed with them....mostly Europe. Sorry but those are the breaks. I wonder why any country would give up their right to charge their own population anyway. Seems silly for a country to join ICC.

[DonCoquixote]

4. This is BS

Isis is claiming to be a STATE, a full country. If they want that honor, they should be held responsible for it.

[hack89]

7. Should the UN recognize them as a sovereign state? Nt

[DonCoquixote]

8. They do not need to

If they are proclaiming that they are a state, they should be held accountable, and yes, if Texas were to let's say, attack Mexico because it never gave up on the idea that theyere were a separate state, then I would rather let them dangle on their own before wasting the life of one USA buck private to defend Rick Perry and his lot.

[christx30]

10. It's more like if your local

police force operated as a subscription service. To get protection, you had to sign up. If you didn't sign up, they wouldn't help you, but you would also not be subject to arrest for any reason. If you can take care of yourself, there's no reason to sign up.
As long as ISIS is operating within Syria or Iraq (neither members of the ICC), they can't be touched by the ICC. But anyone else can touch them.
Besides, what's the ICC going to do? Do they have a military arm? What's a ICC prosecutor going to do? Deploy a subpoena against them?

[romanic]

5. So basically

The ICC is useless and can't do anything. Just great.

[mallard]

6. Re: The ICC is useless

They seem to know it too well and are using this stark point to trumpet a want for ... use.

[geek tragedy]

9. Each and every ISIS member can still be prosecuted and sentenced in any number of countries.

Their participation in hostilities is a per se criminal act. To the extent any are taken prisoner, the states that take them prisoner can try them, and punish them accordingly.

[Xithras]

11. "International law" is just a series of treaties.

There is no international government that has any authority over the individual nations of this planet. International law is simply a series of treaties that nations have signed, laying out the baseline rights and responsibilities of each nation. Some, like the Geneva Convention, are universal simply because all 196 nations on Earth have signed them. Others, like the Rome Statute that establishes the ICC, are not so universally accepted, and only about 120 nations have signed it. Keep in mind that the list of nations that haven't ratified it include China, Russia, and the United States, so we don't exactly have a lot of room to talk (the ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute crimes in the United States either).

Many smaller and eastern countries don't want anything to do with the ICC because they consider it to be another tool of European imperialism. They point out, correctly, that the ICC has a track record of prosecuting people from small and developing nations, while ignoring crimes committed by leaders of powerful western nations.