In an extraordinary statement issued on June 9, the Presidency of the International Criminal Court—representing the court’s three senior judges—baldly asserted that the court “is one of the most significant achievements of human civilization.”
Ironically, this claim was made in a press release, noting the decision taken to refer ongoing disciplinary proceedings against the ICC’s prosecutor to the Assembly of State Parties—the ICC’s supervisory body—and to suspend the prosecutor from duty with immediate effect.
The presidency further called on “everyone in the court and all stakeholders to place in the forefront, at all times, the interests of the institution and our collective duty to offer the victims and affected communities the justice and hope they deserve, for the sake of present and future generations.”
The statement was the ICC’s attempt to claim immunity from the reputational destruction it has visited upon itself. This destruction was brought about by allegations of institutional racism as well as crippling professional, ethical and procedural scandals. In particular, there has been a recent sexual misconduct scandal surrounding the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
By invoking the image of a shining legal Camelot, the ICC is desperately trying to distance itself from the unaccountable Frankenstein’s monster it has become. Even die-hard supporters of “international law” and “international justice” have balked at its chutzpah in doing so, publicly challenging the court’s evident savior complex.
Particularly damning were comments by Ambassador Sabine Nolke, an established insider as Canada’s Permanent Representative to the Netherlands and the International Judicial Institutions in The Hague from 2015 to 2019, and chair of the committee in charge of pre-selecting the ICC prosecutor at the heart of the court’s latest sex scandal. Asked if she agreed with the ICC Presidency’s statement above, she responded, regarding the “actual brick and mortar reality and its governance. No.”
She added, “When you ask me if the court is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the answer is no.”
The reality is that the International Criminal Court has been a disaster for international justice.
The reaction of senior researchers at the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies—one of them a former researcher at the ICC and Amnesty International—is also telling. They said they found the claim that the ICC is “one of the most significant achievements of human civilization” to be “particularly egregious,” in that it cast the court’s staff “as messianic disciples of justice.”
The ICC’s “messianic self-congratulation” was described as “infuriating,” “damaging” and a “spiral of absurdity.”
Commentators noted that the court’s expression of its savior complex was particularly ham-fisted, given that it was promulgated while several black African nations have undertaken initiatives to withdraw amid allegations that it is “an instrument of neo-colonialist repression.”
The court’s tendency to focus on Africa is a matter of record. Some African politicians have simply labelled the ICC the “International Caucasian Court.”
African Union leaders have accused the court of “racist hypocrisy” and “double standards.” Rwandan President Paul Kagame stated that the ICC reflected “colonialism, slavery and imperialism.” An Ethiopian prime minister accused the ICC of “hunting Africans” because of their race. African discontent culminated at the January 2017 annual AU heads of state summit in Addis Ababa, when the AU called for the mass withdrawal of its member states from the ICC.
The ICC’s alleged racism aside, grandiose promises to strike “decisive blow[s] by the righteous sword of blind justice” have become mired in institutional corruption, procedural incompetence, prosecutorial negligence and misconduct. It did not help that all this has been presided over by lackluster judges, themselves elected to the ICC bench by corrupt FIFA-esque vote-trading and shoehorned in by the NGOs that vet the candidates. Unsurprisingly, many ICC cases have been characterized by wishful thinking, incompetence and ineptitude on the part of the court.
In April 2019, the first four presidents of the Assembly of States Parties, which oversees the ICC, publicly admitted that “the International Criminal Court needs fixing,” something that clearly hasn’t happened. Amnesty International has noted the ICC’s “questionable credibility,” subsequently warning that “the court’s legitimacy risks being eroded by an increasingly selective approach to justice.”
In 2023, Human Rights Watch warned of “concerns of politicization of the court’s work” and noted its “legitimacy challenges.”
Similarly, ICC-friendly international law experts have said the following of key ICC decisions: “spectacular failures,” “fiasco,” “obvious shortcomings,” “deeply misguided … very dangerous and unwise,” “confusing,” a “mess” and the “worst possible solution,” with ICC prosecutors said to be “poorly prepared,” “angry, threatening” and “autocratic” with a “coercive or dictatorial management style” and a “recurring pattern of evidentiary problems.”
The reality is that the court has become a disaster for international justice. Its reputation has been irretrievably damaged by accusations of racism, blatant double standards, hypocrisy, corruption and serious judicial irregularities.
It is a $2 billion failure, more Kafka than Camelot.
