The ICC should be disbanded

The International Criminal Court based in the Netherlands may have been set up with the best intentions. But intentions alone, no matter how noble, do not assure success. And without success, those intentions are meaningless, and a waste of time, money and effort. The ICC can't hope to succeed because from the very start it was still-born.

When it was established in 1998 at a convention in Rome that produced the so-called Rome Statute, only 123 countries signed on, or just a little over half of the more than 200 countries in the world. That alone already seriously impaired, if not completely scuttled, what it had set out to do. It can't set the world aright if it can't deal with non-members.

It doesn't help the ICC's cause that three of the biggest and most powerful countries in the world, the United States, China, and Russia, are not on board. These countries are particularly known to impose their will on others, in the process committing crimes clearly in the crosshairs of ICC. But if it can do nothing here, what's the sense doing it elsewhere?

If the ICC can do nothing about the war crimes being committed by Russians in Ukraine, it should have, for the sake of fairness, nothing to do with the Philippines. And not only because the Philippines has withdrawn its membership but, more importantly, its beef about the war on drugs was, and still is, a sovereign function of a functioning government.

The ICC ought to be ashamed trying to strong-arm smaller states when the truth of the matter is, it is nothing but a wimp with a self-important name whose resume carries with it the ignominy of having been slapped around by the United States when it passed what has come to be called, notoriously, as "The Hague Invasion Act."

This refers to, officially, the "American Service-Members Protection Act", a law enacted during the George W. Bush administration which effectively shielded American men in uniform from any action by the ICC or any of its tribunals. The US at the time was deep at war in Afghanistan, where many war crimes were alleged against US servicemen.

But because it can't lift a finger against Russia, the US, and even China, which has been oppressing its tiny Muslim minorities, the ICC wants to save face, and who knows but maybe to also keep its multi-million-dollar funding, by going after those in states like the Philippines that it thinks will grow weak-kneed in its supposedly imposing presence.

Just look at where the ICC has been and what it has done. Since its inception it has opened investigations into only 14 "situations". These are in such countries as Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cote d' Ivoire, Darfur, Sudan, DR Congo, Georgia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Uganda, Bangladesh, Myanmar. Hard not to notice the bias, right?

There is in journalism this analogy about a dog biting a dog not being news but that a man biting a dog is. Well, a dog biting a dog is not news in Sudan. But a man biting a dog in the US is. When cops in a functioning democracy become enemies of the people they are supposed to protect, that is where the ICC should look. But it can't. So why not call it quits?