new anti war ideas? or the same old pathetic small marches

by Andrew Thu Jan 09, 2003 13:42

Appeals to the UN to stop imperialist wars are as old as the organisation itself and have always been unsuccesful because the imperialist powers all have a seat on the security council. With 'new ideas' like this give me a good old fashoned march around town any day.

by MG Thu Jan 09, 2003 15:05

I'm open to correction on this point, but doesn't the Hague court's jurisdiction only apply to the former Yugoslavia? I was under the impression that its official title was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

I don't think the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been established yet. Even so, Australia's declaration when ratifying the Rome Statute stated:

"To enable Australia to exercise its jurisdiction effectively, and fully adhering to its obligations under the Statute of the Court, no person will be surrendered to the Court by Australia until it has had the full opportunity to investigate or prosecute any alleged crimes. For this purpose, the procedure under Australian law implementing the Statute of the Court provides that no person can be surrendered to the Court unless the Australian Attorney-General issues a certificate allowing surrender. Australian law also provides that no person can be arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by the Court without a certificate from the Attorney-General."

by Daithi Thu Jan 09, 2003 15:36

MG..you're right, the Hague tribunal has no connection to the ICC (though the court, when it begins to function, will be based there)..but what do you expect from someone doing not even a petition but an electronic petition - way to go, I can see the holders of power in this world trembling already at a collection of email addresses that may or may not exist. It doesn't matter if you're calling on the wrong tribunal or on Tinky-Winky-Teletubby to prosecute, if you're doing it in this fashion no-one's going to listen anyway. As regards the ICC itself it reached the necessary 60 ratifications during the summer and the statute entered into effect on July 1st. Crimes since then can be prosecuted but the prep work is still going on - because the court is more separate from the UN than the tribunals apparently there is a lot of admin work to be done - I know that some of the judges have been nominated but I'm not sure how far along that process is. The biggest problem, IMHO, is the declarations that the US is obtaining from various states parties to grant a certain immunity to their forces (the US, of course, showing their usual commitment to international law by signing and withdrawing from the statute). The last time I posted on this (in July) I was told that it didn't really matter because socialism would eliminate war anyway...I prefer to wait and see but it's not looking v. optimistic; then again if the US are outside it they (hopefully) can hardly dominate it.

by Shane Thu Jan 09, 2003 17:01

There is no such thing as the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.

Is this one of those collect as many e-mails as we can petitions?

by Daithi Thu Jan 09, 2003 17:33

You better believe it..check out www.petitiononline.com (the site where this is hosted) for more petitions than you have ever seen. They probably cancel each other out though.