Here’s The Guardian on the ICC and the recent conviction of Charles Taylor in The Hague:
There was relief in Freetown yesterday as the verdict was read out, and with it the recognition that Taylor will never again return to plague them. And yet there is still a long way to go before one can say that the goal of ending impunity for crimes against humanity has been reached. It is still plainly nowhere in sight. Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, has appeared before the international criminal court (ICC), but Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, another recipient of an ICC arrest warrant, will not be delivered to a court over Darfur anytime soon. On the contrary, current attempts to stop a proxy war developing around the oil fields of South Sudan are predicated on him staying in power.
Like Liberia or Sierra Leone, the justice system is dysfunctional (in cases of this importance) in Russia too, but it is a safe bet that no Russian leader will ever appear before an international court of justice for war crimes committed in Chechnya. The same is true of China and Tibet, or US or British generals for war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Might, or a seat on the UN security council, still appears to be right. If the arm of international law is long, it is also selective. So the charge that the international courts are largely confined to Africa, sticks. If impunity is to end, jurisdiction has to be universal.
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