generalspeaking

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Islamic State Before the International Criminal Court

That's interesting; treating the Islamic State caliphate as a state entity insofar as it can be hauled before the International Criminal Court to stand trial for its unspeakable crimes. The ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has declared the group to have committed "serious crimes of concern". A Security Council resolution, recommending that the International Criminal Court commence with proceedings to hold it to account for its crimes may be considered.

It is a move that will surely give a form of unintended legitimacy to the Islamic State. In the recognition that it indeed forms a state. As for holding it to account for the barbaric atrocities that it has committed and continues to enjoy scandalizing the world with, in the manner of its mass slaughters, group beheadings, crucifixions, enslavement of women, persecution of minority ethnics and religions along with the ancient existence of regional Christians, it will become a travesty.

Those in the Middle East find it absurd that an International Criminal Court would presume to judge any Muslim nation, to begin with. There is always the example of Sudan, whose government and its state leaders have been condemned as genocidal, refusing to appear before the ICC to enable it to mount a criminal trial. Sudan's president, Omar al Bashir, charged in 2009 for war crimes in Darfur sneered at the charges.

And nor did any other Arab country honour the obligation as UN members to apprehend President Bashir when he visited their countries; instead they honoured him and ignored along with him, the ICC charges. In refusing to recognize the authority of the court in The Hague, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda suspended its charges, blaming the situation on the lack of action by the United Nations.

Inaction, she claimed emboldened the perpetrators of war crimes to continue their crimes. It most certainly did, and Darfurians continue to be violently and viciously persecuted by their government.

What authority would the ICC bring on the international stage to demand that the Islamic State now present to the court? How likely is it that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would deign to present himself before the ICC? The Arab League, on the other hand, is more than prepared to support Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his threats to lodge an official complaint with the ICC to prosecute the State of Israel for war crimes.

And the International Criminal Court, proud of its credentials as a last-stop resort to hold to account the world's most egregious state criminals like Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would be only too obliging in charging Israel with war crimes, content to overlook the inconvenient facts of reality relating to Hamas's instigation of defensive reprisals mounted by the IDF, while Hamas terrorists hid behind Gaza civilians, manipulating events to extract the greatest number of casualties from among the civilian population to prove Israel's intention to commit war crimes.

Labels: International Criminal Court, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Sudan, United Nations