by Max du Plessis
It has become fashionable to criticize the International Criminal Court for its exclusive focus on African cases. Developing nations, particularly from the South, now repeatedly and rightly complain about the skewed power relations in the
A decade after the court started work, the
Not only is this a tragedy for the Syrian victims of war crimes, it is also a telling example of the illusion of universal international criminal justice and the reality of politics frustrating the ideals of the ICC.
We now need to reflect soberly on the reality that all the cases opened by that court are in
Ultimately, it is a question that any first-year law student is taught to identify: one of fairness and equality. So long as the
British newspapers reported widely on the refusal by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in September last year, to share the stage with
Archbishop Tutu has expressed a powerful moral view that the international criminal justice project is shot through with hypocrisy. While it is easy to dismiss the self-serving criticisms of the ICC by African despots and warlords, it is not possible to do so in response to the archbishop.
Another reason why the ICC perception problem can no longer be ignored is that this exclusive focus on
It is no coincidence that the
Against this background, and in view of the
It is such efforts that demonstrate that a win-win situation is possible. That potential would be realized where the ICC does justice as it should to the African victims of the cases that are rightly before it and does justice to the victims of such crimes outside of
It remains to be seen whether the members of the
It is in the interests of justice and the reputation of the ICC that it stretch its work beyond
Max du Plessis is a barrister, Associate Professor,
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