Matthews: Was the first decade of the ICC a more just one?

By:
Kyle Matthews
/
17 April, 2012
By: Kyle Matthews
Executive director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

Although the ICC has only been around for a decade, I do feel that it has made a positive contribution to international justice and ending impunity. True, it has no enforcement capacity and relies on the good will of the international community to apprehend those individuals it has issued indictments against. This is exemplified by the fact that Joseph Kony and the LRA still roam the jungles of Central Africa. However, the ICC’s aggressive pursuit of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Côte d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo does send a message that the age of impunity is nearing a close.

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