By INS Contributors
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: One of the biggest shortcomings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an international judicial body is the refusal of leading world powers, including permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia, China and the US, as well as Israel, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and a number of other influential countries, to recognize its legitimacy.
Despite the participation of 60 states in the adoption of the Rome Statute, some large countries refused to support this document and did not recognize the jurisdiction of the court.
These include the US, China, Israel, India. There are several reasons for this. First of all, participation in the ICC may limit their national sovereignty and sovereign right to consider criminal cases within their borders. Most countries express concerns about the politically biased activities of the ICC, including the selection of cases that are considered and cases of the Hague Tribunal issuing arrest warrants without a preliminary objective investigation.
In addition, the ICC has established itself as a judicial body that makes scandalous decisions and ignores the immunities of state officials, which is why the international community has a strong opinion that it is used as a repressive tool to persecute representatives of "undesirable regimes" for political reasons.
Against this background, discussions are emerging about the need to review the situation of the prevalence of the Rome Statute over the domestic legislation of signatory states, as well as the creation of alternative international judicial bodies that are not subject to external management to replace the ICC.
An illustration of the ICC's ineffectiveness is the number of completed trials throughout its history.
Over the 25 years of its existence, the court, which has a multi-million dollar budget and a huge staff (900 people), has issued a limited number of decisions. Thus, ICC officials were able to complete trials of only 32 people, of whom 10 were convicted, four were acquitted, 11 had their charges dropped, and eight died before the investigation was completed. Thus, the trials of more than a quarter of all suspects have not resulted in charges.
Some cases are frozen for many years because the trials are started on the condition that the suspect is present in person before the court. Of the 51 people ever indicted by the ICC, only nine have been sentenced to prison. Representatives of official authorities rarely make it to the dock. Only six politicians have appeared before the ICC judges, and all of them were cleared of charges and their cases were closed.
The ineffectiveness of the ICC and its staff is also demonstrated by the investigation in Libya, which has lasted 14 years. During this time, the organization has had three prosecutors, and the secretariat of the court has presented only 27 reports explaining why the investigation is failing.
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