A Single Comment — Permalink
© ICCforum.com, 2010–2024. All rights reserved. Policies | Guidelines
Featured Comments
- roccosan: Premise The uniqueness among the Judicial Systems of ICC is a challenge for the application of statistics to measurement about its activities. This is for two reasons: the absence of a reasonable term of comparison; the self-referentiality of the system of measurement. Both the features provide the occasion for a reflection about the meaning of measurement of an object that is strictly qualitative and hold an ontology bereft of... (more)
- chrisjlin: Prosecutorial Discretion in Investigations: A Balance Between Politicization and Independence Abstract I examine the possibility of enforcing a balance between discretion and independence, seeing as how the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) Prosecutor’s decision to investigate a specific country, individual or group is necessarily political, given the ICC’s method of functioning. Despite the occurrence of... (more)
- cgsanchez: The Al Mahdi Case Study: Establishing a Media Bias Baseline to Support Future Research Regarding how ICC’s Operations Affects Public Perception International media reaction to the case The Prosecution v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi heard in the International Criminal Court reveals that the case’s timeline, a country’s governance structure, and whether or not the country is an ICC... (more)
- Hanni Maoz: Evaluation of the Court Performance: A Critical View of the International Criminal Court Indicators for Security Introduction In November 2015, the International Criminal Court (the ICC or the Court) released Report of the Court on the development of performance indicators for the International Criminal Court.1 This First Report contained qualitative and quantitative indicators that were supposed to allow... (more)
- Sebastian Barrios... Evaluating the performance of the ICC: the value of and challenges associated with measuring the expeditiousness of ICC’s proceedings I. Introduction One of the most persistent and often repeated criticisms of all international criminal tribunals has been that they cost too much money and take too long.1 After having been in operation for more than ten years, the International Criminal Court... (more)
- kbanafshe: Evaluating the Performance of the Court: To What Extent have the Actions of the ICC Transformed the Politics and Fostered Peace Within Central and Eastern Africa? The International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) was established in 1998 to “exercise its jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of international concern.”1 The main mandate of the court is to bring wrongdoers to justice, however... (more)
- Mehrunisa Ranjh: Measuring Victim Access to the International Criminal Court: Peace as the Ultimate Goal of International Justice Introduction The creation of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) was an attempt to traverse previously uncharted territory by setting up a permanent, truly international court that would remain impartial, expeditious, and transparent in the face of huge and often conflicting external pressures. The court was envisioned... (more)
- emrenslo: The Performance Indicator “Expeditiousness of Proceedings” Will Cause Unintended Negative Consequences Using “Expeditiousness of Proceedings” as a performance indicator, as currently envisioned by the ICC, has unintended negative consequences for the prosecutorial, judicial, and management aspects of the Court. I. Introduction The ICC released a... (more)
- pgsojo: Measuring Performance on Arrests and Visualizing a More Effective Way in Procuring Them Performance indicators to evaluate the success or failure of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in terms of its mandate of arresting suspects. It is clear how the world has always been in desperate need of a worldwide ruling court, where criminals of great atrocities would face justice internationally known and accepted. The ICC was... (more)
- aaacosta09: Measuring Performance: A Case Study of Positive Complementarity Catalyzed During the Preliminary Examination Stage in Colombia An effective way to evaluate the performance of the ICC is to measure the positive complementarity catalyzed by the Court during the preliminary examination stage in Colombia. Introduction The International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) was... (more)
Comment on the Performance Question: “The ICC has established four key goals regarding, broadly, its proceedings, leadership, witness security, and victim access. What are the appropriate ways to measure the ICC’s progress towards those stated goals? How can the performance of the ICC as a whole be properly assessed?”
In 2009-2010 while in The Hague I asked this question: "what is the effectiveness of the ICC" to Luis Moreno-Ocampo? The former Prosecutor said (1) deterrence and (2) complementarity.
Deterrence is an interesting western concept for democracies. I see a lot of genocide going on around me in Sudan, Syria, parts of Sri-Lanka, parts of Myanmar to name but a few. Not to even mention the mass slaughter and genocide of LGBT persons across much of the globe. At the same time I have seen the former Prime Minister/Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, cancel trips to London (before the law was changed in the UK) and Brussels because in those countries it is fairly easy to get arrest warrants.
On that topic of arrest warrants the current prosecutor is going to issue some reprimand towards the South African government for failure to arrest Al-Bashir. Aside from this illustrating one of the weaknesses of the ICC (lack of an enforcement mechanism), it seems to me to be a rather feckless move.
As to deterrence, I would say only to those who adhere to a functioning judicial system.
Which takes us to the second issue of complementarity. Naturally this is true where there is no functioning judiciary such as in the DRC, the CAR and so on. But when it comes to the concept of an independent functioning judiciary it becomes far more difficult. Who decides whether the functioning of a judicial body is independent or not? Is it the OTP to decide whether the Israeli investigations into Operation Cast Lead are independent? Or is it a committee of the ASP? Or is it a friendly Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, such as the former professor, John Dugard of the ILC, who was bought and paid for by the PLO, not that different from Schabas. Maybe it should be Schabas who wanted to see Shimon Peres in the gallows.
Which raises another question which is not before the forum, the independence of the ICC from the UN. Technically the Court is meant to be independent from the UN, after all that is the function of the ICJ. But then who funds the ICC? Are the members of the ASP members of the UN? Is the ASP mutually exclusive from the UN decision making authority? A little bit tricky.
As professor Stahn and the other experts say this all gray and not a toggle switch. The ICC cannot be evaluated on the concepts of four "empirical" criteria. It requires a holistic analytic study with both subjective and objective factors.