By refusing visa to International Criminal Court prosecutor, US suggests contempt for international law

On April 5, the USA revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for her attempts to open research into alleged battle crimes dedicated by the U.S. In Afghanistan. A week later, judges at the ICC rejected Bensouda’s request to open an investigation into U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan.
While rights advocates condemned this move as amounting to U.S. Interference within the workings of the ICC, it’s more alarming than mere obstruction – and is rooted inside the pre-present hierarchy and embedded colonial structures in worldwide felony order.
Bensouda’s visa revocation underscores the prevailing systematic inequality in worldwide prison order. This is rooted within the presumed hierarchy via a group of elite nations which have ruled worldwide order from a position of assumed racial, cultural, political, ancient, cloth, monetary and felony superiority.
These tendencies are available light of comments made by way of the Trump management’s national safety marketing consultant, John Bolton, who delegitimized the position of the ICC in a speech he introduced in September 2018. He stated that “the U.S. Will take any means essentially” to triumph over “unjust prosecution by way of this illegitimate Court.”
Countries just like the U.S. Have usually enjoyed dominance through this presumed superiority, enabling them to suggest other countries are like-minded in terms of the international felony order.
The U.S. And different powerful international locations have not only been a hit in maintaining the reputation quo of imbalance inherent in international regulation but however, have also been instrumental in establishing the guidelines governing that legal order.
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With tectonic political shifts internationally, the ICC’s representatives – and jurists like Bensouda – represent a number of the final vestiges of resisting the dominant global felony order by way of attempting to hold the West responsible for their transgressions inside the worldwide South.
Unfortunately, but, the Court’s unwillingness to transport beyond its imperial roots is clear from the choice to reject Bensouda’s request. The ICC has blatantly redefined the notion of “justice” and has been preoccupied with African states whilst turning a blind eye to similarly critical crimes dedicated with the aid of the U.S.