On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 23:00:53 +0200, Torsten Brinch
wrote:

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:11:32 GMT, (Charles Hawtrey)
wrote:

The ICC is noble in principle but unworkable in practice. The guilty
can easily evade justice by having sham trials in their own countries,
while well-meaning peacekeepers will be subject to an endless
annoyance of frivolous prosecutions.

No, that's a misunderstanding. The ICC was set up exactly to avoid
that kind of impunity, by giving the ICC the ultimate jurisdiction.

Have you actually read the relevant part of the Rome Statute? The bar
for "ultimate jurisdiction" as you call it is set so high that it is
effectively useful only when the case of a state with no central
government. A state that wishes to shield violators can easily do so
by setting up a sham trial that follows the formalities of its legal
system. Theoretically the trial could be declared a sham, but in
practice the shielding state can easily avoid this by making a good
show. Few would be so naive as to conduct a transparently obvious
sham trial.

I think that many supporters of the ICC are so taken with the nobility
of the idea that they have not bothered to find out what the Rome
Statute actually says. For example we often hear that the ICC will
have jurisdiction over only the worst crimes. Yet the Rome Statute
says that even attacks against _vehicles_ can fall within the
jurisdiction of the ICC! It is not even specified that the vehicle
need be occupied at the time.

--
I don't know why you people seem to think this is magic,
it's just this little chromium switch here... Ah you people
are SO superstitious...