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?”
Richard Dicker notes in his lecture an important problem in the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United National Security Council: The ICC can only indict non-members to the Rome Statute with approval from the UNSC, but countries like the United States and China are both non-members of the Rome Statute AND have veto power on the UNSC. Thus, in the current relationship between the two legal entities, officials from countries like the United States and China are protected from ICC indictment.
This problematic relationship could be changed for the better through institutional reforms in the UNSC to make the power of the five permanent council members less than absolute. For example, the five powers could maintain a more "weighty" vote than other security council members without having veto power that completely exempts them from any multilateral decision that is unilaterally undesirable.
With this reform in place, the five permanent members of the UNSC would still have to fear ICC indictment, and the ICC would have power with the universal reach that it lacks today.
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?”
Richard Dicker notes in his lecture an important problem in the relationship between the International Criminal Court and the United National Security Council: The ICC can only indict non-members to the Rome Statute with approval from the UNSC, but countries like the United States and China are both non-members of the Rome Statute AND have veto power on the UNSC. Thus, in the current relationship between the two legal entities, officials from countries like the United States and China are protected from ICC indictment.
This problematic relationship could be changed for the better through institutional reforms in the UNSC to make the power of the five permanent council members less than absolute. For example, the five powers could maintain a more "weighty" vote than other security council members without having veto power that completely exempts them from any multilateral decision that is unilaterally undesirable.
With this reform in place, the five permanent members of the UNSC would still have to fear ICC indictment, and the ICC would have power with the universal reach that it lacks today.