Kinsman: Which current or former international leader should be prosecuted by the ICC and why?
Former ambassador to the European Union and high commissioner to Britain
If only it were that simple. His desperate and brutal repression will not save Al-Assad in Syria beyond the short-term, and daily adds to the ICC’s prosecution case against him. But China and probably Russia would veto a reference from the UN Security Council. Moreover, an eventual negotiated exit strategy for al-Assad may need to predicate no ICC prosecution. Such an outcome which ends the battle should not be seen as a defeat for the ICC, but instead as proof of its fledgling but growing authority and potential reach. That the ICC has enabled by now some significant justice to be done is modifying the calculations of dictators everywhere.
