Waste of time – won’t capture Assad or rebel war criminals.  Even if the situation were to be referred (which would require abstention or support from both Russia and China on the UN Security Council, which itself is unlikely), it would be necessary to capture Assad and other suspects before trying them. This has proven very difficult, for example none of the suspects in the investigation in to the Lords Resistance Army activity in Uganda have been captured [1] – it is equally likely that they would be killed during any capture attempt as occurred in Libya when Gaddafi was captured and then shot on the spot by the insurgents [2] ; one cannot put a corpse on trial.  [1] Dicker, Richard, and Ebenson, Elizabeth, ‘ICC Suspects Can Hide – and That Is the Problem’, Jurist, 24 January 2013,   [2] Kofman, Jeffrey, and Dolak, Keven ‘Moammar Gadhafi Dead: How Rebels Killed the Dictator’, ABC News, 21 October 2011,  n.b. the video in this article is rather graphic