ICC to make it difficult for the guilty to hide

Indonesia now must educate itself on international courts. The following are the highlights on the International Criminal Court (ICC) excerpted from an interview with Colin MacDonald, a senior Australian human rights lawyer based in Darwin, Australia:

* The ICC was set up by the Statute of Rome in 1998. What the ICC does is jurisdiction in respect of war crimes.

* One of the articles in the Statute requires 60 ratifications by member nations of the UN before the ICC is constituted.

* By article 11 of the Statute the jurisdiction of the ICC is prospective. There is no retroactivity.

* The jurisdiction of the court is in respect of four crimes; crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. There is not yet a definition for the fourth. So no one can be charged by prosecutors until a proper definition is agreed upon.

* The court has established a judiciary and the provision of the Statute aims for the highest quality of judiciary that the world can provide.

* The judges have to have hard qualifications, experiences and have to be elected. They can be nominated by countries, but they have to be elected by at least a two-thirds majority of the member states which ratified the convention.

* There are nowadays 20 ratifications and 112 signatories. Many countries are in the process of ratification. It is confidently expected that 60 ratifications will be attained next year.

* There is a provision for extradition; the existence of the ICC will make it a lot harder for the guilty to hide.

* There will be a mechanism for non-member states for requests to the Security Council for them to exercise the passage under chapter 7 which is to bring people who may be hiding to the ICC.

* The ICC has jurisdiction for specific crimes which globally applies across the nations.

* There has been a very conscious ethic to provide guarantees that those charged with crimes receive a fair trial. Though the languages of the court are English and French, the accused must have the availability of an interpreter and translation into their own language.

* There is the principle of complimentary, that is the court is in a complimentary way to the court jurisdictions of member states. So in relations to crimes, the world can work first to the member states.

* In a case where a member state is unable or unwilling to bring to trial persons believed to have committed offenses, the ICC will intervene.

* Indonesia has not yet signed and ratified the convention. (I. Christianto)