On April five, America revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for her attempts to open an investigation into alleged struggle crimes committed through the U.S. In Afghanistan. A week later, judges on the ICC rejected Bensouda’s request to open a probe 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 extra alarming than mere obstruction, and is rooted in the pre-existing hierarchy and embedded colonial systems in international felony justice. Bensouda’s visa revocation underscores the present systematic inequality in the international criminal order. This is rooted in the presumed hierarchy of a collection of elite countries that have dominated the international order from a position of assumed racial, cultural, political, historical, fabric, financial, and felony superiority.
These traits come in light of comments made via the Trump administration’s national security advisor, John Bolton, who delegitimized the position of the ICC in a speech he delivered in September 2018. He stated that “the U.S. will take any manner vital to conquer unjust prosecution with the aid of this illegitimate Court.”
Countries like the U.S. have continually enjoyed dominance via this presumed superiority, allowing them to indicate that different countries are like-minded regarding the global felony order.
The U.S. And different effective nations have no longer been a success in preserving the popularity quo of imbalance inherent in worldwide law. However, they have additionally been instrumental in organizing the policies governing that felony order.
With tectonic political shifts the world over, the ICC’s representatives — and jurists like Bensouda — represent a number of the closing vestiges of resisting the dominant global prison order by attempting to hold the West accountable for their transgressions inside the global South.
Unfortunately, however, the Court’s unwillingness to transport beyond its imperial roots is obvious from the decision to reject Bensouda’s request. The ICC has blatantly redefined the belief in “justice” and has been preoccupied with African states while turning a blind eye to similarly extreme crimes committed by the U.S.
