Richard Dicker
Director, International Justice Program, Human Rights Watch
Lecture Topic beginning January 15, 2013
UN Security Council Lecture Question
How should the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council be changed, if at all, to advance international justice?
Comment on the Security Council Lecture Question: “How should the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council be changed, if at all, to advance international justice?”
If the ICC wished to be truly apolitical, I do not think that it should take referrals from the UNSC at all. To be fair, the court should only have jurisdiction over the countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. To try to extend its reach further, whether unilaterally or with the UNSC’s assistance, looks to me to be a purely political move. The public seems to forget that this is an international, not universal, court. I believe it to be unjust to prosecute someone over which the court should have no authority, so I think the relationship with the UNSC should be changed in the manner of eliminating referrals. Though this may mean that justice will go unserved in some places of the world, it keeps the ICC from being a hypocritical organization. Referrals do not seem to be effective at the moment anyway, considering the UNSC still had its way in Libya even after referring it to the ICC, killing Gaddafi, an indicted leader. The UNSC is capable of ending atrocities by itself and does not seem to care as deeply about the justice that comes afterwards. All of this would suggest that referrals by the UNSC are more symbolic than anything, and we should do away with them to keep the ICC from becoming too political.
Richard Dicker
Director, International Justice Program, Human Rights Watch
Comment on the Security Council Lecture Question: “How should the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council be changed, if at all, to advance international justice?”
If the ICC wished to be truly apolitical, I do not think that it should take referrals from the UNSC at all. To be fair, the court should only have jurisdiction over the countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. To try to extend its reach further, whether unilaterally or with the UNSC’s assistance, looks to me to be a purely political move. The public seems to forget that this is an international, not universal, court. I believe it to be unjust to prosecute someone over which the court should have no authority, so I think the relationship with the UNSC should be changed in the manner of eliminating referrals. Though this may mean that justice will go unserved in some places of the world, it keeps the ICC from being a hypocritical organization. Referrals do not seem to be effective at the moment anyway, considering the UNSC still had its way in Libya even after referring it to the ICC, killing Gaddafi, an indicted leader. The UNSC is capable of ending atrocities by itself and does not seem to care as deeply about the justice that comes afterwards. All of this would suggest that referrals by the UNSC are more symbolic than anything, and we should do away with them to keep the ICC from becoming too political.