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ICC judge on what U.S. sanctions mean for her and global courts

229 points · 173 comments · rbanffy

  1. Planktonne · · focus · HN ↗
    > "We are judges, and we are being told that rather than deciding our cases on the basis of the facts and the law before us, as we are duty bound to do, we're being asked to decide the cases or not decide them in accordance with the wishes of the U.S. government," she said.

    Just incredibly naked corruption.

    1. layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
      She’s just rephrasing the intent of the sanctions here I believe, not claiming that anyone else is making those demands.
      1. impossiblefork · · focus · HN ↗
        Having seen some other texts, at least one other judge (Guillou) has really strange attitudes of the role of the court, discussing the European project, etc. in articles about the court.

        The fellow does not give the impression of understand fully that he's sitting on an internal court with its own powers, and the way US/Polish/etc. crimes have been excluded from the Afghanistan investigation even though people relevant in such an investigation are particularly easy to interview since so many are in Europe I think these people genuinely do not understand their job, or have given themselves another job in their minds.

        Prost is now basically doing public outreach, Guillou was doing public outreach and diplomacy trying to interact with the EU to get it to enforce its blocking statute regarding sanctions on the court-- all this stuff instead of using the powers they're granted by Rome statute to deal with this specific problem.

        They have the remedy. Anyone retaliating against the court can be ordered arrested, and the signatories have to do it or they're in breach of the treaty.

        The level of subservience of the judges is just ridiculous.

        1. impossiblefork · · focus · HN ↗
          Sorry, but understand -> understanding and "he isn't sitting" "without its own powers" instead of "he's sitting" and "with its own powers".
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