Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

I am asked to speak on the prospects for a permanent international criminal court. That idea has been around, in some form or other, for a considerable time, and for almost the whole of that time it has had no realistic chance of success. Now that for various reasons there is some if limited chance of achieving such a court, there is a tendency on the part of some proponents to favour maximalist versions of a court. This being the only likely chance, it is said, let us take that chance and do it properly. This is not, it is said, the time for half measures. I believe such approaches are counter-productive. We neither need a full scale international system of criminal justice, nor are we likely to get one. The case for an international criminal court is the case for a court of exceptional jurisdiction, one which will be resorted to in only special cases and under special circumstances. It is true that for some, such a partial system of criminal justice is no system at all - it is a contradiction in terms. The opposition of such critics to what they see as half measures is one of the difficulties facing an international criminal court, and in particular such a court as was envisaged by the International Law Commission in its Draft Statute of 1994. I want to try to explain why, nonetheless, the approach underlying that Statute is both legally proper and within the realm of practical possibilities, given the requisite degree of political will.

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