Criminal justice
International Criminal Court and the question of sovereignty
No place to hide – the powers of the ICC can supercede national sovereignty
Authors:
A. Bharadwaj
Publisher:
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India, 2003
The entry of the Rome Statute on July 1, 2002 opens new avenues for the international community to monitor human rights violations within states and bring delinquent individuals to trial. One of the main reasons for the court to come into existence after the end of the Cold War is that many crimes committed against humanity have been ignored by states either due to 'military necessity' or under the national sovereignty and territorial integrity clause. The ICC is designed to assert itself when a state refuses or fails to use its national criminal justice apparatus to deal with the perpetrator of crimes against humanity.
This paper argues that the ICC challenges the exclusivity of sovereign states. ICC imposes certain restrictions and limits on state authority and competes with the state in the exercise of authority. The author suggests that by upholding the principles of international law within their territories, states can now prevent supranational interventions. This could lead states to value justice over narrow political considerations.
The paper first looks at the formation of the ICC and its basic structure. It then assesses the impact of the ICC on sovereignty in two ways. First, it looks at the metamorphosis of the individual from 'object' to 'subject' in the eyes of international law. Second, it examines the impact of ICC on the changing nature of the sovereignty discourse.
The paper concludes that in an interconnected and interdependent post-Cold War world, the choices are becoming limited, as states have become transmitters of global norms into the national mainstream. Under such circumstances, it may be better for small and weak nations to pool their sovereignties in international organizations rather than letting their sovereign energies flowing towards a few or rather one powerful player in international politics, since the chances of receiving peace and justice within a larger international organization are much greater than relying on the sole Superpower to deliver justice only through war.
Summary originally provided by GDNet, an Eldis content partner
