Talk:International Criminal Court/Archive 3

message: Why not move this to it's own stubb? It should remain avaialable, but has no relvance to this article.
Raggz 01:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  This section will only get bigger, and the article's already too long. Sideshow Bob Roberts 02:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done — see International Criminal Court in popular culture.  All comments and criticisms welcome! Sideshow Bob Roberts 03:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The ICC in popular culture

message: The following is partly OR and most will not apear in the article
War Crimes:"In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under international law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of the law of war in an inter-state conflict is a war crime, while violations in internal conflicts are typically limited to the local jurisdiction. In essence, the term "war crime" represents the concept of an international jurisdiction as applicable to the most severe crimes, in areas where government is dysfunctional and society is in a state of turmoil." Actual international law is more complex than wikipedia law, but if we assume the above is correct the ICC has jurisdiction from (1) The UN Security Council (which may enhance ICC jurisdiction), (2) Over all war crimes in Somalia, (3) Over all troops from ICC members. (4) The ICC is "local law", (the local judge is quoted saying child rape is not being tried because the soldiers are men and must be enterained.) An ocupying force has Geneva Convention responsibilities.
Next we have command responsibility. The Commander is appointed by the UN and has command responsibility (liability). The UNSG stated that there was a problem and that it would get fixed (in 2004). IF the problem was covered up or neglected (as widely alleged), then command responsibility goes up to whatever level should have stoped the war crimes, or held the criminals internally responsible. The nation that lent the Commander cannot be liable.
Somalia doesn't want UN troops, the UN mission is technically an invasion of Somalia by foreign troops. The war has already been ruled inter-state anyway. This means in "wikilaw" that "Every violation of the law of war in an inter-state conflict is a war crime". 
Is the ICC Prosecutor expected to ignore the potential effect upon the ICC if he investigates the UNSG and the UNSC national representatives for command responsibility war crimes? What if he just prosecutes low level field commanders only, will they still protect ICC personnel? My OR point is that the ICC prosecutor would be foolish to focus on investigating ANY UN war crimes, regardless of merit. The UN has impunity under international criminal law in fact, if not in theory. Raggz 01:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: war crimes & icc jurisdiction in Sudan

message: This source is a serious work, but fact checking might be questioned as it seems self-published. I added it anyway, because it helps maintain a NPOV and I don't have a better source to manage this. It is a serious scholarly self-published source. Feel free to delete it, if it seems unreliable. We can bend the rule for NPOV compliance - if we want to. Raggz 21:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Harrington Cite

message: The article currently states:
:There is broad acceptance of the principle that a citizen of a first country who commits a crime in a second country may always be tried and sentenced in the second country, and, in limited circumstances, may be tried by the first country under extra-territorial laws. The International Criminal Court uses this principle to extend its jurisdiction to crimes committed in the territory of a member-country by someone who is a national of a non-state party. However critics of the court have contested this interpretation, claiming that this right to prosecute a non-national is "non-delegable". [85]
I can’t find the word ‘non-delegable’ in the source.  What gives? Sideshow Bob Roberts 03:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Caught out I'm afraid. I'll dig out the quote from Condi (which puts it better than the source) and add it in. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Jurisdiction over citizens of non-member countries

message: :GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
#It is stable.
#:
#It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
#:a (tagged and captioned):  b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
#Overall: 
#:a Pass/Fail: 
Congrats, the article passed Wikipedia:Good article criteria with flying colors. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (ταlκ) 23:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Review 

message: The article currently states:
This is incorrect.  The Prosecutor only needs to obtain authorisation from the Pre-Trial Chamber when he's acting proprio motu, under Article 15 of the Rome Statute.  Where a situation has been referred by a State Party or the Security Council, the Prosecutor doesn't have to obtain permission.  
Unfortunately, the ICC website (which the article cites as a source for this information) does not make this clear.  The sentence "If the Prosecutor then decides that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation, he will request the Pre-Trial Chamber to authorise an investigation" could easily be understood to refer to all investigations, not just those where the Prosecutor is acting on the basis of information received by other sources.  (I've also read others interpret the statute this way, including the American Bar Association (.doc file).)
Nonetheless, this interpretation is clearly wrong.  The Pre-Trial Chamber didn't issue its first decision until 17 February 2005, by which time the Prosecutor had already opened formal investigations into the situations in Uganda and the DRC.  He was able to open these investigations without authorisation from the Pre-Trial Chamber because these situations were referred to him by States Parties.
Dozens of reliable, published sources explicitly state that judicial authorisation is not required where a situation has been referred by a State Party or the Security Council.  See, for example:
*Christopher Keith Hall: "The Powers and Role of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Global Fight against Impunity".  Leiden Journal of International Law (2004), 17: 121-139;
*Michela Miraglia: "The First Decision of the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber".  J Int Criminal Justice 2006; 4: 188-195; or
*Annie Wartanian: "The ICC Prosecutor's Battlefield: Combating Atrocities While Fighting for States' Cooperation. Lessons from the U.N. Tribunals Applied to the Case of Uganda".  Georgetown Journal of International Law 36 no4 1289-316 Summ 2005 (which is free to read here).
Does anyone object to changing this?  Sideshow Bob Roberts 03:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not I. Your legal expertise when engaged, rarely fails to illuminate. Thank you for correcting my error. I didn't follow your explanation fully, but as long as you are certain that the ICC Prosecutor may investigate the Iraq War without referral from a State Party, I'm fine.Raggz 03:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Initiating investigations

message: Chad should be green.  It's probably a very simple thing to fix but it's beyond me.  Sideshow Bob Roberts 13:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Map of member states

message: This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Ruslik 09:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Sweeps (kept)

message: I've reverted most of this edit, which I think is pretty misleading.  Firstly, it suggests that amnesties violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  However, neither of these documents explicitly calls for individual criminal prosecution of human rights abusers.  If anyone wants to suggest that amnesties violate the UDHR or the ICCPR, please cite a reliable, published source who says this.  
Secondly, the editor cites three documents from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (,,) but misreports what they say.  (For example, I couldn't find where these sources "argue that the granting of blanket amnesties for extreme human rights violations [...] abuses the rights of victims".)
If people want to expand this section, let's stick to what our sources actually say, and not publish our own analysis.  After all, there are loads of reliable, peer-reviewed papers about blanket amnesties, impunity, and the ICC, so there's no reason for us to say anything that's not explicitly supported by a source.  Cheers, Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 11:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Amnesties

message: I'm reverting this edit, which transformed the section on Iraq from a one-paragraph summary to a series of random quotes from the Prosecutor's letter.  
First of all, I think a concise summary is much easier for the reader to understand than a series of quotes.
Second, it makes no sense for us to go into so much detail about Iraq, when ICC hasn't even opened an investigation into the situation there.  I don't understand why we should be giving more space to Iraq than we do to Darfur or any of the other situations which the Prosecutor has actually investigated.  Moreover, this article clearly links to both The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the prosecutor's letter.  Any readers who are interested in long, direct quotes from the prosecutor's analysis are capable of clicking the links and reading it for themselves.
Thirdly, by taking quotes out of context, this section distorts the Prosecutor's conclusions.  For example, under the heading "Allegations concerning War Crimes", the Prosecutor is quoted as saying that "the available information did not provide a reasonable basis to believe that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court had been committed".  However, if you read the source (PDF), it's clear that this quote referred specifically to the targeting of civilians or clearly excessive attacks, not to war crimes in general.  (In fact the Prosecutor concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes had been committed.)
Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 23:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Iraq