JuridicsPhilippines: International Criminal Court: Prez signs on to ICC, Senate needs to consent

President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and sent it to the Senate for concurrence in the Philippines.  Hat Tip to Romel Relagado Bageres.  "Yes!  Now it's up to the Senate to follow the lead made by the President in assuring that the country joins the global call to stop impunity and prosecute perpetrators of heinous crimes."

ICC prosecutors successfully pursued a number of the most significant leaders of the Serbian and other atrocities in the Balkans, even bringing Slobodan Milosevich to the bar of justice.  In that case, the accused died in the midst of a long trial, before the Court's justice process was complete.  In the Ruanda genocide, the ICC-related International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecuted a number of the figures responsible.   More recently, shocking revelations occurred when the UN somehow leaked a report that the present regime in Ruanda wanted repressed, showing a second Rwandan genocide, this time against refugee Hutus in camps in the Congo.  Politics have interferred with any further action by the UN or the ICC.  In Sudan, ICC has successfully indicted the accused genocidist President Omar al-Bashir, but he has travelled in Africa and Arabia with impunity, ICC prosecutors being unable to arrest him.  His planned participation in the Lusaka, Zambia summit was thwarted, as his presence there woud have taken him into an ICC signatory state where there is a duty to arrest any ICC indictee.  In the present lingering genocide in Darfur, Sudan, the African Union peacekeeping forces are largely maintained by the forces of the accused Ruanda military that prevailed in the Congo, against whom gencidist allegations have been made.  The Ruanda info is based largely on Atlantic Wire  "UN Report on Rwanda Genocide shakes Africa" by Max Fisher (Aug29,2k10).

As soon as the Senate of the Philippines follows President Aquino's lead, Bashir will be subject to arrest if he visits that country.

-- posted by Lawt

JuridicsInternational: International Criminal Court: ICC takes up Libya case

Recent developments demonstrates the International Criminal Court's willingness to act in a timely way in stress-laden way, while crimes of genocide may be taking place.  The Court's previous effort to bring the alleged genocidist President of Sudan (Bashir) to the justice have been thwarted by the principal accused himself, and also various countries of Africa and Arabia (not, to my knowledge, Saudi Arabia, while the latter country has given refuge to the former tyrant of Tunisia).  -- Lawt




This video image taken from Libyan state television broadcast Wednesday March 2, 2011 shows Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi addressing supporters and foreign media on Wednesday in a conference hall in the capital Tripoli, Libya. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has vowed to fight to the "last man and last woman" to defend his country. (AP Photo/Libyan state television via APTN) LIBYA OUT, TV OUT (AP /March 2, 2011)

Libya case a new challenge for International Court

Today: Gaddafi sons to be investigated also

both stories by Arthur Max, AP 
First story via Chicago Tribune (Feb2,2k11) is quoted below.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — In its nine years of existence, the International Criminal Court has yet to prove itself. Now it has been handed another tough assignment — meting out justice for possible crimes against humanity in Libya.

The court's first trial has been a shambles, it cannot apprehend its most wanted suspects and it has been criticized for focusing too much on Africa.

Yet the order by the U.N. Security Council to investigate Libya marks an achievement for the court, which is still struggling for global acceptance.

The 15 Security Council members unanimously approved the decision Saturday, even though five of them — including permanent members China, Russia and the United States — themselves refuse to recognize the court's jurisdiction and have not signed its founding treaty.

"It is very positive that the ICC is being looked to by the Security Council as a possible tool for accountability," Elizabeth Evenson of Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo was instructed to report back to the council in two months on his investigation whether Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's violent crackdown on anti-government protests featured crimes against humanity.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cited reports perhaps 1,000 have died amid a popular uprising and the government's violent crackdown on Gadhafi critics.

The Security Council move sends "a very strong message to Gadhafi and Gadhafi's henchmen that the violence against civilians that has been reported needs to stop," Evenson added.

The investigation marks another step toward holding authoritarian leaders accountable for the criminal activities of their regimes, a process that started with Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic, who died before his trial could finish. It continues now through the war crimes trials of Liberia's Charles Taylor and Bosnian Serb strongman Radovan Karadzic, whose cases are under way at other international courts in The Hague.

Prosecutors at the ICC will first carry out a preliminary probe to establish if crimes falling within the court's jurisdiction have been committed in Libya. That assessment will include the seriousness of the allegations and whether Gadhafi is likely to face justice in Libya.

-- Associated Press material posted by Lawt