The International Criminal Court is an inter-governmental organisation and international tribunal with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for international crimes. It is not to be confused with the International Court of Justice.
The International Criminal Court was established to be impartial in seeking the truth and dispensing justice based on ethical and moral dispositions.
But in reality, it deviates from these ethical principles. For it has been shown that its reaction to world conflicts is anything but an accord to these principles.
Not only that, its jurisdiction in dispensing justice in treating every conflict with equanimity and fairness, and without fear or favour, is tainted with prejudices and biases.
The International Court of Justice (a misnomer) has shown to favour the Western powers, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, and their close allies, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
They display an adversarial and lackadaisical attitude towards other countries in the Middle East, South America, and Eastern European and Asian countries.
Together with the International Court of Justice and the United Nations, they exist to serve the Western powers and to advance the Western ideological imperatives.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court reacted with uncanny swiftness to the purported war crimes perpetrated by Russia in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
After a year of conflict (the result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022), the International Criminal Court issued a warrant of arrest for Vladmir Putin, the Russian President, for the abduction of children from Ukraine. A warrant of arrest was also issued for Maria Levovo Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
No one should condone the use of military force, for whatever reason. Conflict resolution should be engaged through peaceful means. However, powerful nations with their superior war arsenals, find it expedient to intimidate and invade weaker nations to achieve their hegemonic objectives. Alternatively, they will use weaker nations as proxies to fight their wars, as in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Admittedly, warring parties have no qualms of committing war crimes to achieve their military objectives. The International Criminal Court should prosecute all those concerned, and not apply selective prosecution.
The International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court have turned a blind eye to previous atrocities and war crimes committed by American and British forces under former president George W. Bush and prime minister Tony Blair respectively, in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That, and the perennial Israeli atrocities on the Palestinian people.
These leaders and their forces are untouchable and have immunity from prosecution.
The most glaring case is the illegal occupation of Palestine, where untold atrocities, including the killing of men, women, and children, as well as restricting medical and basic necessities, and the systematic evictions of Palestinian homes to make way for Jewish settlers, are officially sanctioned by the rogue administration of Israel.
This occupation and the atrocities are not only condoned, but encouraged by the United States, United Kingdom, and NATO and their allies, who are complicit in this carnage. It is preposterous to imagine that the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are blind to this genocide.
Likewise, in Myanmar, the junta government has had a free hand in committing genocide on the Muslim Rohingya. There is not so much as a whimper, except for some rhetorical assertions and inconsequential sanctions by the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court.
From its inception, the United States has been a warmongering nation. It fought and annihilated the Native Americans, occupying their nation and homeland. The American Indian wars marked the beginning of American belligerence that has continued for more than four hundred years, till now.
The United States has fought wars in all of the world’s major continents. In South America, the United States intervened to effect regime change in Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. This is referred to as the Banana Wars.
In Southeast Asia, it was the main player in the Vietnam War, and the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars.
It engineered wars in the Middle East to destabilise the region, in support of the state of Israel, and to seize and secure oil and other resources, not to mention, to support its trillion-dollar military-industrial complex.
The United States supported Iraq in its seven-year war with Iran, then invaded Iraq on the spurious assertions of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
The United Kingdom is not only the United States’ lackey, but has been waging war since the early days of the British Empire. Former British prime minister Winston Churchill once arrogantly proclaimed that the “sun shall never set on the British Empire”, asserting its military might.
It fought many wars in India, Burma (now Myanmar), the Middle East, Africa, and New Zealand to defend its colonial empire, as well as fighting at home, against Ireland and Wales.
It is notable that in the twentieth century, it fought major wars alongside the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
In pursuing their warmongering, hegemonic agenda, the United States and United Kingdom caused huge fatalities and untold atrocities.
Yet, they have been immune to prosecution for war crimes. The United States constantly reminds the world that its leaders and soldiers are immune to prosecution. A travesty, when Bush, Blair, and the Israelis should have been charged for war crimes and crimes against humanity, specifically, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Palestine.
Alas, this will never happen, for the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are subservient to the dictates of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Woe betides those who dare challenge their position of immunity.
This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Twentytwo13.