David Bosco: Justice Delayed ... Ten Years Later, the ICC is Still on Trial
David Bosco, a Foreign Policy contributing editor and author of the FP blog "The Multilateralist," is assistant professor at American University's School of International Service. He is at work on a book about the International Criminal Court's first decade.
A decade ago, the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened its doors for the first time. Four years after 120 countries voted to create a permanent institution to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression, the court that activists had long dreamed of was becoming a reality.
Or so it seemed. In a sleepy suburb of The Hague on that July day, two court officials took questions from journalists and, when they were finished, walked into the modern office building that would serve as the court's headquarters. They kept right on walking, though -- through the back door and straight out of the building. The ICC was just an empty shell. No offices were ready, and the court had no budget. Staffers bought the court's first telephones on their personal credit cards.
Even worse, the infant court faced a hostile superpower. In 2002, the United States was not only determined to keep its distance from the court -- it was using its weight to restrict the ICC's reach. A few weeks after the court opened, President George W. Bush signed legislation directing the United States to cut off military aid to any country unwilling to sign a pledge refusing to send U.S. citizens to The Hague. The measure went even further, authorizing the president to use "all means necessary" to free Americans held by the court. The ICC's first employees felt the institution's fragility acutely. One of the first judges, Sang-hyun Song, told me recently that he and other judges "were not at all sure about whether this new baby would be able to survive all the hostility shown by the big powers."
Ten years later, that same building in The Hague hosts a staff approaching 1,000 lawyers, investigators, and administrators from around the world. The court's annual budget exceeds $100 million. Once personae non gratae in Washington, court officials now confer regularly with the State Department and White House staff, and the United States has pledged to help investigations when possible. In all, the ICC has launched investigations in seven countries and brought charges against 28 individuals, including Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, and notorious Lord's Resistance Army commander Joseph Kony. Perhaps most importantly, the U.N. Security Council has twice referred situations to the court (Sudan and Libya), giving the ICC jurisdiction where it had none before and bringing the court into the center of international efforts to manage conflict.
For all the distance the court has covered, however, its 10-year anniversary is still far from joyous...