Although the ICC is a non-military organization that doesn’t incite the use of force in it’s proceedings, and I believe it should remain this way, I do agree with Ambassador Scheffer in so far that the ICC needs some sort of condition which will render it’s threats a realistic force in the arrests of convicted individuals. This said, I’d like to echo the initial posts of this forum; I agree the ICC should remain a non-military body for a number of important reasons. Already to date, peacekeeping by military force has proved a complex and often times failure prone concept (the U.N. Peacekeeping Force is a critical example)- I hardly believe that introducing an intention of military force to the ICC’s agenda would end in positive affect. Moreover, the concept of funding seems an ambiguous problem, who would fund this special police force? Lastly, I too would be nervous that perhaps the ICC police force would serve as only another military body that cannot be controlled. Depending on who the body is made up of, how could the ICC ensure control and compliance of this new power dynamic? If the Court proved unable to control even its own military force, the ensuing embarrassment would only further tarnish the ICC’s credibility. A potential solution, from my point of view, would be some sort of coordination between the ICC and host governments in order to secure the arrests and surrender of indictees. If host governments were more willing to place economic and social pressures on ICC indictees (pressures that the Court is less able to incite), then perhaps arrests would be much easier for the body at large. In many cases, it seems as if host countries purposefully operate separately from the ICC, a reality that almost ensures that the Court struggles to arrest those who they indict, and moreover, convince nationals of that country that the convicted individual in fact should be brought to justice.
David Scheffer
Professor of Law
Comment on the Arrest Lecture Question: “What steps can and should the ICC take to secure the arrest and surrender of indictees?”
Although the ICC is a non-military organization that doesn’t incite the use of force in it’s proceedings, and I believe it should remain this way, I do agree with Ambassador Scheffer in so far that the ICC needs some sort of condition which will render it’s threats a realistic force in the arrests of convicted individuals. This said, I’d like to echo the initial posts of this forum; I agree the ICC should remain a non-military body for a number of important reasons. Already to date, peacekeeping by military force has proved a complex and often times failure prone concept (the U.N. Peacekeeping Force is a critical example)- I hardly believe that introducing an intention of military force to the ICC’s agenda would end in positive affect. Moreover, the concept of funding seems an ambiguous problem, who would fund this special police force? Lastly, I too would be nervous that perhaps the ICC police force would serve as only another military body that cannot be controlled. Depending on who the body is made up of, how could the ICC ensure control and compliance of this new power dynamic? If the Court proved unable to control even its own military force, the ensuing embarrassment would only further tarnish the ICC’s credibility. A potential solution, from my point of view, would be some sort of coordination between the ICC and host governments in order to secure the arrests and surrender of indictees. If host governments were more willing to place economic and social pressures on ICC indictees (pressures that the Court is less able to incite), then perhaps arrests would be much easier for the body at large. In many cases, it seems as if host countries purposefully operate separately from the ICC, a reality that almost ensures that the Court struggles to arrest those who they indict, and moreover, convince nationals of that country that the convicted individual in fact should be brought to justice.