ICC to make it difficult for the guilty to hide
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)