The ICC may be here to stay, but more than words are needed to protect our culture system of international law
In September, Kenyan television stations have replaced their tariffs in the afternoon soap, opera wall to wall with something new - the coverage of preliminary hearings before the Criminal Court (ICC) the participation of six Kenyans accused of orchestrating the most brutal communal violence after the 2007 elections.
Miles saw the ICC prosecutors in the Netherlands has asked the accused - including a deputy prime minister, the head of public administration and a former chief of national police. Whatever the outcome - and certainly there were errors - the case of the ICC are providing Kenyans with full public review of what happened. To date, the only serious attempt to prosecute those responsible.
From Kenya to Yemen and from Sri Lanka to Syria, "The Hague" has come to inspire hope among the victims of the violence that increasingly see the ICC as a necessary support when national justice systems can not or will not respond to mass atrocities. Therefore, despite widespread criticism of his performance, and the fact that many major powers - China, India, Russia and the United States - have not yet joined the ICC is likely here to stay " / aa>
But it can not be said of many other branches of the international justice system has developed over the last six decades. We talk all the international tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies that have standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and regional conventions and charters, and apply them in specific cases. courts in Africa, the Americas and Europe, in collaboration with the "body of the treaty" the United Nations to monitor the behavior of the state. International Criminal Tribunals adjudicate individual responsibility for serious crimes. Although that different in many ways, these institutions share the common goal to fight against impunity for human rights violations and / or humanitarian law. Thus, states have supported - or what they were brought -. to believe not only the idea of ??law, but it works in practice Unfortunately, states are increasingly default on their commitments. Under the radar, the governments of recent years has lobbied aggressively against the institutions whose job it is to do justice to the victims of abuse. This spring, the Community Development of Southern Africa - a group of 15 states - has closed its regional court, after the protests of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the judges were to stop its program Land Reform Government for the compensation of former owners. Mugabe was not alone in thinking of the courts must do their will. A minister of justice in a neighboring country would have said, the regional courts "that we use are for us." In West Africa, Equatorial Guinea has threatened to withdraw from the African Commission on Human Rights and people, a judicial body that considers complaints from regional rights throughout the continent, if you deign to hear a case of human rights against its leader, President Teodoro Obiang. The organs of the human rights convention of the United Nations - lawyers who consider individual complaints - the theme of "views", but can not effectively controlled. As a result, are often ignored. A recent study by my organization, the Open Society Justice Initiative, concluded that, over 500 cases in which the Human Rights Committee found violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, less than one-fifth received a satisfactory answer. Many states do not. governments do not like independent judges telling them what they can - and can not - do. The effort to build on the work of the African Commission by creating independent African Court on Human Rights and Peoples' ability to issue binding decisions, moves slowly. So far, only five governments have accepted its jurisdiction over individual complaints Even the European Court of Human Rights - which has the longest history and most important financial support of its members - the struggle for states to do what he says. At the end of 2009, more than 7500 decisions still pending. In Russia, the applicants who dare to take the government of Strasbourg were beaten, kidnapped and even killed. Moreover, despite a claim may be the result of violence, hostility to European judges abound.All these courts are places of last resort. Pledged as security for - but not replace - the national courts, which retain primary responsibility for serious human rights violations corrected. However, in situations where national courts can not or does not work, supra-national judges play a key role in defending the rule of law.
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