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by bawolff 396 days ago
Not really. The ICC mostly doesn't prosecute heads of states. Recent events are kind of unusual relative to the historical role. Historically ICC mostly went after rebel groups.

Think of the treaty as more of an extradition scheme. Its also a bit of an insurance policy - its an incentive not to commit international crimes against/on territory of member states, because it becomes much harder to evade justice.

There is also an element of symbolism to it, of what type of country you want to be.

1 comments

The head of the ICC, Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023[1], so of course, Russia has issued an arrest warrant for him.

A year goes by, and the government of the world's other large rogue state responded thusly, to the ICC's consideration of arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and Hamas leaders:

> On 24 April 2024, Khan was sent a letter signed by 12 Republican U.S. senators[c] threatening him and other UN jurists and their families with personal consequences if the ICC were to seek an international arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu or other members of the Israeli government. The letter cited the American Service-Members' Protection Act – known informally as "The Hague Invasion Act"[42] – which specifically includes "all means".[43][44] The signatories said they would view any arrest warrant as "a threat not only to Israel's sovereignty, but also to the sovereignty of the United States". They threatened: "Target Israel and we will target you", and that any further action would "end all American support for the ICC" and "exclude [Khan and his associates and employees] and their families from the United States". The letter ended: "You have been warned."[45]

I'm not exactly sure what your point is. The Israel & Russia situation are somewhat exceptional in the history of people the ICC has issued warrants for. The majority of the work the ICC has done in the past has not been about holding the leaders of regional powers accountable. They have largely in the past concentrated on much smaller fish.

Whether that is good or bad is debatable, but i think it gives the wrong impression of the icc to assume that this type of situation is the primary thing the icc does (or did historically)

Karim Khan is not the head of the ICC.