Comment by soldthat
5 hours ago
There’s a fundamental flaw in the concept of “international justice”.
On a nation level the power of a court to prosecute individuals is supported by a policing force that is capable of resorting to violence on a local level that is acceptable for the greater peace.
On an international level, enforcing justice would ultimately require going to war, with mass casualties and likely numerous incidents of potential breaches of the law itself.
In the example of Israel vs Hamas, the ICC warrant included the leaders of Hamas - but the ICC had zero chance of actually arresting them, they were killed by Israel though. So half of the defendants carried out the justice sought by the ICC on the other half.
The national policing forces don't report to the courts. Instead, there are promises between the two. The argument that international courts cannot work because they don't have their own enforcement is weak. But you are right it would be equivalent to war, or "special military operations" such as Bin Ladin, if a ruling party is convicted.
There's no such flaw in most cases brought to the ICC
The ICC is an international court but it administers trials (mostly) local to the members' jurisdiction so this point is moot. A warrant from the ICC doesn't ask the member states to go to war and hunt the target, it asks them to arrest them if the target is within their jurisdiction
The fact that the ICC warrant was unlikely to lead to Hamas' leaders arrest in the short term is not particularly meaningful
The "mostly" qualifier is because IIRC there are some provisions for truly extraterritorial prosecutions in the Rome treaty but I don't know that they've ever been actually used
“Justice” without enforcement is meaningless.
They have a warrant out for Putin, has that made any impact on the war in Ukraine?
> has that made any impact on the war in Ukraine
The objective of the ICC is not to stop wars
The objective of the ICC is to provide a framework to enable prosecuting and punishing the people ordering particularly egregious acts in a way that is more consistent with liberal rule of law principles than post-hoc tribunals like after WW2 and that is more accessible to fragile / new countries due to having the legal infrastructure set up and at least partially legitimized by it being an international body
The fact that Putin (for example) might at some point get extradited / captured, prosecuted and jailed for whatever crimes he gets found guilty of is a moral good in and of itself
If this being done at the ICC rather than in an Ukrainian or Russian (in an hypothetical regime after Putin's) helps others accept the verdict as more based on fact than politics then that's why the ICC exists as an entity
If this makes someone down the line think twice about ordering war crimes then that's an added benefit but it's not the point
If for example Putin was overthrown and had to flee Russia, and happens to fly over an ICC signatory, he could rightfully be arrested and brought to justice. What is the alternative? CIA assassinations and kangaroo courts?
This only applies if the individuals are a) protected by their country of residence and b) never leave it.
Neither of those are certain and even for people that a) applies to, b) can be a big hassle.
Just ask Netanyahu.
If the country itself has a justice system that can prosecute the individual, the ICC has no jurisdiction.
In the case of Israel the ICC used a loophole to work around this, since the Israeli courts are actually able to prosecute Netanyahu (and are currently doing so on other matters).
Whether Israeli courts are able and willing to prosecute Israeli war crimes is... up for debate.
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7 Oct was justice by this standard of yours.
> So half of the defendants carried out the justice sought by the ICC on the other half.
...without trial. And assuming guilty and sentenced to death.
Trial by which court?
This is standard rules of war. Soldiers don’t have to convene a court before shooting at enemy combatants.
>This is standard rules of war.
So was most of what was done on October 7th by Hamas...
>Soldiers don’t have to convene a court before shooting at enemy combatants.
Or, a convoy of ambulances running with lights and sirens along a pre-approved route.
I think this comment shows how far removed is the modern person living in a sheltered, matcha-sipping western environment from actual human historical reality. Do you seriously suggest that during an active war one side would bring the other to trial rather than just destroy them?
Have you heard about Nuremberg trials?
The winning side destroying the losing has historically been the exception, not the rule. So why not?
I agree. Having lived with a civil war and with non-western roots I find the Western attitude to things like this to be hopelessly naive. It is the product of a golden age following the collapse of communism and the subsequent unrealistic "end of history" optimism.
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Indeed, conflating execution without trial with ‘justice’ is utterly bizarre.
There are no trials in combat.
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