4 ms·

For example: selective enforcement, for example states vs terrorists. Even Russia became a victim of that, which I'll point out in hopes of avoiding discussion

by spwa4 1y ago

For example: selective enforcement, for example states vs terrorists. Even Russia became a victim of that, which I'll point out in hopes of avoiding discussion on Israel. Russia, of course commits human rights abuses in Ukraine. But Daesh committed serious human rights abuses against Russia [1] [2], as did a number of other islamist, nationalist and even a socialist group. Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that. But this is a general problem. The court undertakes action against states, especially if they are currently unpopular in the UN (who appoints the judges), but never against the many groups that commit large scale human rights abuses against those states. A third problem is that ICC convictions are entirely optional if you're in power. Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE last year to sue Israel, and has done so before against the US. A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no. Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue. Or to focus on a different problem, there's constant human rights abuses essentially everywhere on the planet in the prison system, including juvenile justice systems and just general youth services. This happens everywhere, with famous incidents in Romania, the US, France, Australia, ... you will not hear the ICC on this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Morocco [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#Abuses_of_religious_freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Turkey#...

vidarh 1y ago
The ICC takes actions against people. It very specifically does not have jurisdiction over conflicts between states. The ICJ pursues cases against states. > Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that. The ICC only has jurisdiction over the territories and nationals of the State Parties to the Rome Statute. In the case of Israel, the actions are taken on the basis of alleged crimes in Palestinian territory, the same basis they have used for pursuing Palestinian crimes. They have not "changed their own statutes". In the case of Daesh/ISIS, the court has issued statement that affirm that there are serious crimes involved, but pointing out that for those crimes taking place in Syria and Iraq, the ICC had no territorial jurisdiction because neither state were parties to the Rome Statute. In the case of your examples of Daesh actions in Russia, Russia is also not a State Party to the ICC, and so it was Russias own choice to ensure that Daesh can not be pursued by the ICC. > Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The US and Israel are not parties to the ICC. They should have no expectation that a court they have explicitly refused to be part of will allow them control over how the court exercises the mandate given to it by those who are actually parties to the court. > Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue. The "various reasons" being that the ICC does 1) *not have jurisdiction over states, 2) the Rome Statute does not allow the ICC to pursue individuals for violating freedom of religion. In other words: While I'd be all for protecting freedom of religion and for the ICC to be able to prosecute people preventing it, it is not a power the ICC has been granted by its signatories. Effectively your complaints against the ICC all boil down to the ICC following its own rules about what its jurisdiction is and which crimes they are allowed to prosecute.
- spwa4 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - vidarh 1y ago
    > Your entire argument boils down do "this is legal for the ICC, and that that definition of legal differs greatly from your sense of justice doesn't matter" No. No part of my comment was about that at all. > is the case can you explain ICC action against US and Israel, neither of which are parties to the Rome statute The ICC does not take actions against states. As for the actions against Israeli officials, those are taken on the basis of actions relating to Palestine, over which ICChas jurisdiction be cause Palestine is party to the court. I explained this. > Also from the other side: the ICC most certainly COULD sue South Africa for working with Putin and Bashar Al-Assad to help them escape justice. No, it could not. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over states. For the ICC to act would require evidence of specific individuals violating the Rome Statute. > They chose not to. Frankly, MANY signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to ever hold up their end. Here we agree, for once. This is indeed a problem. > And your claim "they follow their own rules" ... you also neglected to discuss why the ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE to sue Israel ... They did not, and the ICC does not sue anybody, and the ICC can not pursue states. Every part of this sentence is wrong and or misunderstands how the ICC works.
    - spwa4 1y ago
      [flagged]
- mr_toad 1y ago
  So it’s like a court where only law abiding citizens agree to its jurisdiction and all the criminals get away with murder because they never signed a treaty.
  - Rodeoclash 1y ago
    Yes. These are countries, not individuals. Short of aliens taking over control of earth, this is the best we have.
lurk2 1y ago
I’m not seeing how this causes human rights abuses like you originally claimed. Your post has also left me with two more questions: > Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. Isn’t this because they are non-members? > A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no. How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them?
- spwa4 1y ago
  > Isn’t this because they are non-members? No. For non-members it is assumed that they by default ask the ICC to not investigate any human rights crimes either involving their state, or on their soil. Which the ICC then has to respect ... Or that WAS the case until last year. In the middle of their existing court case against Israel it became clear that Israel requested ICC drop the case on their territory, and of course Palestine has neither borders nor are they a member of the ICC (despite Palestine signing the Rome accords to immediately afterwards start screaming on TV that they wouldn't respect them as they relate to Palestinians themselves), and therefore there were no grounds for the case. So South Africa, amidst allegations of Qatarese bribery, was allowed to bring a claim, and that South Africa has now twice helped people convicted at the ICC escape ICC justice did not negate that (they helped Bashar Al-Assad, and Putin) So then the ICC modified their own statutes, which they're not allowed to do, so that the particular kind of non-member that Palestine is, would be allowed to put disputed territory as valid territory retroactively for such complaints (because despite how the press presents it, Palestine's claims relate to the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, specifically underage ones, on Israeli soil, NOT about what happened in Gaza. You see, the court has accepted an argument that since neither Hamas nor the PA allow investigators or journalists on their soil, claims there cannot reasonably be the basis for any conviction) In other words, the court allowed what is effectively Hamas (not the PA) to enter Tel Aviv as territory for this court case. You see, this is about Hamas scoring a PR victory. The idea that Hamas, through Qatar, via South Africa, is worried about the treatment of a West Bank resident Palestinian boy is utterly absurd. The only thing they care about is that it is an argument they might win, at which point the papers will be full of "Israel convicted at ICC for human rights abuses". This is the same Hamas that has mounted a suicide vest on an unwilling underage girl who was being treated in Israel for cancer, forced her to try to cross the Israeli border, and blew her to pieces when she tried to get help from the border guards, you see, THAT organization, is really worried about whether children who killed someone people get to see their parents sufficiently often in prison ... Yes, Hamas is a party to the Rome statute (they agreed to respect it so they could partake in elections, elections, I might add, that ended with Hamas executing election officials in the emergency ward of a Gazan hospital) and plenty of other treaties at the UN. Including treaties that they'll prevent any and all terror attacks against civilians ... Meanwhile they AND the PA, pay Palestinians a monthly pension based on how badly they hurt Jews [1] (sorry, this organization that signed treaties to arrest any terrorists they know of "has stopped doing that" 4 months ago. They promise. Needless to say, the payments continue) Obviously this ICC rule change is insanity and will lead to disaster, and they'll retract the rule when it is used by anyone else, for example, when Kurds enter a claim about abuse in Ankara for example, Iran or Iraq, or Druze against Syria, or ... And while this is the most egregious example of abusing the ICC, it is far from the only one. There's a similar conflict with the US. The problem with the ICC is really quite simple: a lot of signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to respect any court decisions made by the ICC, and the ICC allows states to openly defy their treaty obligations without any consequences. The US and Israel, when they realized they didn't either, publicly withdrew so they'd remain honest. South Africa, Mongolia, Palestine, Hungary and others just started violating the treaties they agreed to without withdrawing. When push comes to shove, a LOT of nations want war, but can't do it, or can't win it, and they see the ICC itself as a weapon of war. A weapon against "the international order" (ie. what the security council represents). The ICC lets them. > How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them? Oh it is an international treaty. So actually modifying the statutes would be a prolonged process involving all existing parties at the UN. However, the ICC also publishes statutes on their website, which they modify without considering the correct process. That, they can do. Nobody stops them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...

by spwa4 1y ago

vidarh 1y ago

The ICC takes actions against people. It very specifically does not have jurisdiction over conflicts between states. The ICJ pursues cases against states. > Not one iota of attention of the court ever went to that. The ICC only has jurisdiction over the territories and nationals of the State Parties to the Rome Statute. In the case of Israel, the actions are taken on the basis of alleged crimes in Palestinian territory, the same basis they have used for pursuing Palestinian crimes. They have not "changed their own statutes". In the case of Daesh/ISIS, the court has issued statement that affirm that there are serious crimes involved, but pointing out that for those crimes taking place in Syria and Iraq, the ICC had no territorial jurisdiction because neither state were parties to the Rome Statute. In the case of your examples of Daesh actions in Russia, Russia is also not a State Party to the ICC, and so it was Russias own choice to ensure that Daesh can not be pursued by the ICC. > Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. The US and Israel are not parties to the ICC. They should have no expectation that a court they have explicitly refused to be part of will allow them control over how the court exercises the mandate given to it by those who are actually parties to the court. > Or you could point out less serious, but ubiquitous human rights abuses that the ICC won't touch for various reasons. For example, every last muslim-majority state violates freedom of religion, a human right. Even Morocco and Turkey do [3] [4]. You will not hear the ICC on this issue. The "various reasons" being that the ICC does 1) *not have jurisdiction over states, 2) the Rome Statute does not allow the ICC to pursue individuals for violating freedom of religion. In other words: While I'd be all for protecting freedom of religion and for the ICC to be able to prosecute people preventing it, it is not a power the ICC has been granted by its signatories. Effectively your complaints against the ICC all boil down to the ICC following its own rules about what its jurisdiction is and which crimes they are allowed to prosecute.

spwa4 1y ago
[flagged]
- vidarh 1y ago
  > Your entire argument boils down do "this is legal for the ICC, and that that definition of legal differs greatly from your sense of justice doesn't matter" No. No part of my comment was about that at all. > is the case can you explain ICC action against US and Israel, neither of which are parties to the Rome statute The ICC does not take actions against states. As for the actions against Israeli officials, those are taken on the basis of actions relating to Palestine, over which ICChas jurisdiction be cause Palestine is party to the court. I explained this. > Also from the other side: the ICC most certainly COULD sue South Africa for working with Putin and Bashar Al-Assad to help them escape justice. No, it could not. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over states. For the ICC to act would require evidence of specific individuals violating the Rome Statute. > They chose not to. Frankly, MANY signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to ever hold up their end. Here we agree, for once. This is indeed a problem. > And your claim "they follow their own rules" ... you also neglected to discuss why the ICC changed it's own statutes TWICE to sue Israel ... They did not, and the ICC does not sue anybody, and the ICC can not pursue states. Every part of this sentence is wrong and or misunderstands how the ICC works.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    [flagged]
mr_toad 1y ago
So it’s like a court where only law abiding citizens agree to its jurisdiction and all the criminals get away with murder because they never signed a treaty.
- Rodeoclash 1y ago
  Yes. These are countries, not individuals. Short of aliens taking over control of earth, this is the best we have.

lurk2 1y ago

I’m not seeing how this causes human rights abuses like you originally claimed. Your post has also left me with two more questions: > Any government is allowed to ask the ICC to not sue anyone for things either they did, or that happened on their soil. Sorry, any government EXCEPT the US and Israel are allowed to ask that. Isn’t this because they are non-members? > A relevant question would be "is the ICC allowed to change it's own statutes?" ... and of course the answer is no. How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them?

spwa4 1y ago
> Isn’t this because they are non-members? No. For non-members it is assumed that they by default ask the ICC to not investigate any human rights crimes either involving their state, or on their soil. Which the ICC then has to respect ... Or that WAS the case until last year. In the middle of their existing court case against Israel it became clear that Israel requested ICC drop the case on their territory, and of course Palestine has neither borders nor are they a member of the ICC (despite Palestine signing the Rome accords to immediately afterwards start screaming on TV that they wouldn't respect them as they relate to Palestinians themselves), and therefore there were no grounds for the case. So South Africa, amidst allegations of Qatarese bribery, was allowed to bring a claim, and that South Africa has now twice helped people convicted at the ICC escape ICC justice did not negate that (they helped Bashar Al-Assad, and Putin) So then the ICC modified their own statutes, which they're not allowed to do, so that the particular kind of non-member that Palestine is, would be allowed to put disputed territory as valid territory retroactively for such complaints (because despite how the press presents it, Palestine's claims relate to the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, specifically underage ones, on Israeli soil, NOT about what happened in Gaza. You see, the court has accepted an argument that since neither Hamas nor the PA allow investigators or journalists on their soil, claims there cannot reasonably be the basis for any conviction) In other words, the court allowed what is effectively Hamas (not the PA) to enter Tel Aviv as territory for this court case. You see, this is about Hamas scoring a PR victory. The idea that Hamas, through Qatar, via South Africa, is worried about the treatment of a West Bank resident Palestinian boy is utterly absurd. The only thing they care about is that it is an argument they might win, at which point the papers will be full of "Israel convicted at ICC for human rights abuses". This is the same Hamas that has mounted a suicide vest on an unwilling underage girl who was being treated in Israel for cancer, forced her to try to cross the Israeli border, and blew her to pieces when she tried to get help from the border guards, you see, THAT organization, is really worried about whether children who killed someone people get to see their parents sufficiently often in prison ... Yes, Hamas is a party to the Rome statute (they agreed to respect it so they could partake in elections, elections, I might add, that ended with Hamas executing election officials in the emergency ward of a Gazan hospital) and plenty of other treaties at the UN. Including treaties that they'll prevent any and all terror attacks against civilians ... Meanwhile they AND the PA, pay Palestinians a monthly pension based on how badly they hurt Jews [1] (sorry, this organization that signed treaties to arrest any terrorists they know of "has stopped doing that" 4 months ago. They promise. Needless to say, the payments continue) Obviously this ICC rule change is insanity and will lead to disaster, and they'll retract the rule when it is used by anyone else, for example, when Kurds enter a claim about abuse in Ankara for example, Iran or Iraq, or Druze against Syria, or ... And while this is the most egregious example of abusing the ICC, it is far from the only one. There's a similar conflict with the US. The problem with the ICC is really quite simple: a lot of signatories to the Rome statute have zero intention to respect any court decisions made by the ICC, and the ICC allows states to openly defy their treaty obligations without any consequences. The US and Israel, when they realized they didn't either, publicly withdrew so they'd remain honest. South Africa, Mongolia, Palestine, Hungary and others just started violating the treaties they agreed to without withdrawing. When push comes to shove, a LOT of nations want war, but can't do it, or can't win it, and they see the ICC itself as a weapon of war. A weapon against "the international order" (ie. what the security council represents). The ICC lets them. > How does that work? Who sets the statutes if the ICC itself cannot modify them? Oh it is an international treaty. So actually modifying the statutes would be a prolonged process involving all existing parties at the UN. However, the ICC also publishes statutes on their website, which they modify without considering the correct process. That, they can do. Nobody stops them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...