ICC is good for Africa but Bad for dictators
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We have got to support the existence of the ICC because Africa is the top beneficially compared to other countries due to the number of dictators on the continent. The treaty which created the ICC is not even as old as Museveni’s regime or Kony’s war in the north because it was adopted in 1998 at an international conference in Rome after intense negotiations. So why should we start discarding it before It has been tested enough.
The ICC is an important deterrent to those that are committing crimes on the continent. At least, every sitting African president knows that there is now an arm of law that can touch him before he leaves the presidency, if he commits crimes against humanity. We used to have ad-hoc war crimes tribunals (modelled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials following World War II) ,like the one that tried the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague and the Kagame courts in Rwanda that tried genocide criminals, but they were not as legally and internationally pronouncing as the ICC. The ICC is the first new international judicial body since the International Court of Justice, or World Court, which was created in 1945 to adjudicate disputes between states.
The only reason why some people fear this court is because they assume that the West can use the court against developing countries and the presidents they support. This is the same fear Asian countries had before putting their signatures on the treaty. That is why most of the Asian and African countries delayed signing it. For instance, during the war in Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians were raped and murdered. NATO intervened and conducted an 11- week aerial campaign against Yugoslavia that ended the ethnic cleansing. Surely war crimes were committed but it ended with the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic not USA’s Bill Clinton. The same has happened in Libya when NATO intervened to save the Libyans from being killed by Late Muamar Gaddafi. Gaddafi son, Seif, is among those that are likely to be paraded infront of ICC courts if the Libya’s NTC allows it.
Nevertheless, the ICC is regarded as a major step forward in most of the world though it is derided in mainly western nations. No one claims it is perfect, but there are many safeguards. The ICC is based in The Hague and those it convicts can be held in prisons in any of the signatory states. Being used by western nations to push their interests in Africa and elsewhere may be wrong but isn’t that an aspiration worth making a tiny risk for? Who does not want to feel free and safe in their country without these dictators making it hard for everyone?
People with such fears have got a point because the west dominates almost all international bodies but given a choice, i would rather see the ICC help us get rid of the dictators, and then we sort out the west lateron. Atleast, we already know that the great nations are using Africa using different international organs but this does not mean that we have to get used to having dictators on our continent.
Let us also note that Prosecutions in the ICC are only valid if national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute serious crimes. And only a nation ratifying the treaty can make a complaint against its own citizens or those of other nations for crimes committed on its soil. For instance, the International Criminal Court had no authority over events in Ethiopia or Eritrea, because neither country had ratified the treaty creating the tribunal. Israel signed it but not ratified. So ICC cannot touch Israel despite committing crimes against humanity in Palestine. Egypt, Iran and Syria signed. India, Pakistan and China neither signed nor ratified. Russia signed but not ratified. I know that Uganda signed but I’m not sure whether it ratified it. Most democratic nations and all European Union countries signed and ratified the treaty. In the USA, Former President Bill Clinton signed the pact in December 2000 but President George W. Bush renounced it in May 2001. Let us hope that Obama will do the needful and get USA back into ICC before he leaves the presidency.
To be honest, I don’t know why Bush pulled the USA out of the ICC. First, the ICC is strictly prescribed to only atrocities that are spelled out in its treaty. Second, the ICC can’t actually go and arrest people unless they are given enforcement power to do so, which requires a vote of the United Nations Security Council. The US has a veto there, so there is no threat to Americans. Third, even if a third country voluntarily arrests and extradites an American to the ICC, the Security Council can intervene on individual cases. The point is pretty clear: the ICC isn’t something that can harm USA; it only will focus on precisely defined war crimes and crimes against humanity. It isn’t the monster idiots like what some people claim it is. The US is going against the world community by not participating in a court to deal with those crimes. If USA was part of the ICC, it would have made it stronger. It is for this reason that I see no point in the ICC dragging Britain, Russia, China or any of the countries that permanently sit on the Security Council in courts of law because they can easily overpower any form of extradition.
I am not an expert in constitutional law, but I do know that the Constitution recognizes that state crimes are the jurisdiction of state courts. Of course, the rights of the Constitution continue to hold, and if we had federalism in Uganda, certain “due process” would be recognized to be the jurisdiction of Buganda or Bunyoro or Busoga courts.
It seems reasonable that the Constitution be interpreted consistently. Things of a state are the jurisdiction of the state. Things of the world could be the jurisdiction of the world. Perhaps more knowledgeable men than myself might work out the details of a treaty recognizing world courts and establishing the review process by treaty. By the way, I don’t know what court you appeal to after being found guilty in the ICC. May be the lawyers reading this can help us on this one.
However, what we must know is that the war crimes tribunal was created as a court of last resort, and its mandate is to only step in when countries are either unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves. This means that Ugandans or president Museveni cannot be prosecuted over Kony war or any crimes committed in Uganda if the mechanism to prosecute war crimes already exists within the Uganda judicial system. So I ask anti-ICC to stop misrepresenting the court’s concept or to continue arguing that it will be used for frivolous and/or politically motivated prosecutions. Once and for all, the whole concept of an International Criminal Court does not in any way contradict our African/Ugandan ideals. Every Ugandan wants to see justice done fairly but unfortunately we cannot see true justice in our own courts of law.
Byebyo ebyange
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
SOURCE: http://semuwemba.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/icc-is-good-for-africa/
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