The International Criminal Court (ICC) faces its moment of reckoning. Set up to prosecute war crimes, it can issue arrest warrants against individuals if national courts can’t/won’t do it. ICC’s testing its power. Last year, it issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin and now its prosecutor has applied for warrants against five consequential figures in the Israel-Hamas conflict, including Benjamin Netanyahu. The catch here is that ICC can bypass national courts but not enforcement agencies if arrests have to be made.
‘World order’ | The pivotal moment for global legal institutions was the San Francisco conference in 1945 when the UN charter and the statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) were adopted. The euphoria of the founding moment contained a kernel of truth. The world order would be hierarchical. UN’s ‘Big Five’ would get exclusive veto powers because they bore the primary responsibility to hold up the order. And also disturb it, as subsequent events showed.
Shifting equilibrium | A rules-based order has two parts. There are well-intentioned ideas to prevent conflict and promote economic cooperation. There’s also the reality of power exercised by sovereign states. Their interaction produces an equilibrium. That equilibrium is increasingly under pressure, leading to the architecture falling apart. Be it UN or WTO, multilateral bodies are now mostly ineffective.
Fragmented order | Move aside World Bank and IMF. China is today the world’s largest official creditor. A 2021 study looked at contracts between Chinese state enterprises and 24 sovereign borrowers. They’re designed to weaken collective action on debt restructuring by groups like the Paris Club. The world order is fragmenting and there’s not much sympathy because of past institutional hypocrisy. As for ICC, after years of prosecuting African warlords, it’s facing a new reality.
This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
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