ICC doing the job of failed African judiciary

Pan African judicial institutions are either dormant or still have to go beyond the stage of the conventions that created them.

Everyone agrees that there is impunity for abuses at the highest levels on the continent.

It is also agreed that these crimes are perpetrated in most cases by the very leaders who are supposed to protect the people.

Africans also agree that a judicial institution on the continent or elsewhere is needed to try and punish those perpetrating such crimes. 

The best and maybe only option for Africa for the time being is the ICC, which has till now been doing a tremendous job despite the difficult circumstances.

Africa's support for the work of the ICC will not only help reduce impunity and grievous crimes, but will go a long way to make democracy and good governance a reality of even when our countries’ constitutions give our leaders immunity.

The Pan African Lawyers Union met recently to support the position of the African Union in asking the UN Security Council to suspend the ICC’s arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. 

It is truly disturbing that legal practitioners should mix themselves up with politicians in a venture that can only be lethal to the very ideals they should defend.

Suspension of the ICC’s case against al-Bashir would cripple the Court’s independence and its credibility as a judicial institution.

It would also endorse impunity for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and encourage the government’s notion that it can do what it pleases if the 12-month suspension permissible under the ICC statute were to be approved.

It is important that the ICC address the worst crimes that fall within its mandate wherever they occur, and this will mean expanding its cases beyond Africa. 

The ICC has already begun the initial work in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Georgia, where crimes are under analysis by the court.

Some serious crimes have been committed in countries that have not become parties to the court and we all need to work for wider membership in the ICC. 

I would like my own country of Cameroon to move beyond just being a signatory and ratify the ICC treaty.

But no one can deny that many horrible crimes that merit the ICC’s attention have and continue to be committed on our continent.