Lost Illusions, or How the International Criminal Court has become a legal nonentity

Аннотация

A strive for justice and a desire to bring the powerful to liability for crimes against public good and humanity is the idea that has always united people. Yet not all embodiments of this idea are worth existing, the ICC being the case. Legal deficiencies of its constitutional document, the Rome Statute, in terms of its internal contradictions and incompliance of its provisions with the UN Charter, its political bias, selectiveness of its ‘justice’, unlawfulness of issuing arrest warrants for heads of sovereign states which are not parties to the Rome Statute, notwithstanding the fact that such warrants are ignored by many countries, as well as the fact that the ICC, in essence, has transformed from an international justice body into a tool of legal struggle, clearly shows its complete failure. In this respect it shall fall into the oblivion, while its judges, prosecutors and other officials who took unlawful decisions may and shall be prosecuted for crimes under the Russian criminal law. In the author’s opinion, Russian lawyers should voice their comprehensive and well-based professional criticism of the ICC decisions at all forums, present international legal position of Russia in respect of the Special Military Operation, the Ukrainian conflict and other relevant challenging issues to the global legal community, media and people in different countries. Moreover, taking into consideration deficiencies in the ICC’s activities the interested parties could consider a possibility of establishing another international criminal court, which will be spared of them. This Court’s constitution shall be based on the established rules of international law, and its jurisdiction may be extended to the crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and terrorist attacks.

Ключевые слова:

the International Criminal Court, international criminal justice, the UN Charter, immunities of the Heads of State, aggression, the UN Security Council, a legal war