The failure to prosecute him will
be the end for the ICC’s brand of global justice. Numerous commentators argue
that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad should be tried for
war crimes before the International Criminal Court. If anyone ought to be
prosecuted for war crimes, it’s this reviled leader, who almost certainly
directed poison gas attacks against civilians. But as Joshua Keating explained
in Slate, it’s not going to happen. This, just
the latest blow to the ICC, illustrates once again why the prospect of international
justice through global courts is ever receding—and why the court’s own days may
be numbered.
The idea that dictators who cause wars and
kill civilians should be tried and punished is a modern one, but it has roots
in the distant past. Armies always believe that their cause is just and thus
that the enemy deserves punishment. When the Mongol ruler Timur defeated
Bayezid I of the Ottoman Empire in 1402, Timur allegedly had Bayezid paraded
around in a cage and used him as a footstool. As civilization advanced,
however, rulers increasingly were not held personally liable for war-making and
its attendant atrocities. Napoleon was confined to Elba and St. Helena not to
punish him for war crimes but to prevent him from starting wars in the future....ToRead More.....
My Take – Okay….so
the demise of the ICC is bad why? It was a joke! The court pretty much made up
its rules as it went along. The promoters of this piece of claptrap were real
hot to prosecute Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger, but not one word about
prosecuting Fidel Castro, one of the world's great mass murderers. So can we guess the real reason why this thing was created?
No comments:
Post a Comment