International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty
International Criminal Court has Putin, Netanyahu in its sights, yet its courtrooms are empty
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For a few hours last week, the International Criminal Court looked poised to take a Libyan warlord into custody. Instead, member state Italy sent the head of a notorious network of detention centers back home. That has left the court without a single trial ahead for the first time since it arrested its first suspect in 2006. And it's now facing serious external pressure, notably from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Though its docket remains empty, the court still wields an $200 million annual budget and a large number of legal eagles keen to lay their hands on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The lack of trials damages the court’s reputation,” said Danya Chaikel of the International Federation for Human Rights. “The point of the ICC is to investigate and prosecute those most responsible for international crimes.”.
Empty courtrooms show how hard it is to end impunity. The only permanent global court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities has not been in this position for almost two decades. Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga became the first person convicted by court in The Hague. In 2012, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conscripting child soldiers.
Since Lubanga’s trial began, the court has had a slow but steady stream of proceedings. To date it has convicted 11 people and three verdicts are pending. It has issued 32 unsealed arrest warrants. Those suspects range from Netanyahu and Putin to Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and Gamlet Guchmazov, accused of torture in the breakaway region of South Ossetia in Georgia.
