African critics of the ICC doing it for selfish reasons themselves

Africans and people everywhere have supported creation of “a court to bring to justice anyone in a government hierarchy or military chain of command who was responsible” for atrocities, he wrote. “That principle would be applied without exception, whether to the lowliest soldier or the loftiest ruler.”

Annan’s defence of the ICC is particularly notable because of his insistence on ensuring that charges be brought against Kenyans said to have organised the killings that followed the disputed 2007 presidential election.

Annan has threatened to refer the names of accused ringleaders to the ICC in August unless Kenya sets up its own tribunal to hear their cases.

Annan’s warning to Kenya will probably not be weakened as a result of the campaign to discredit the ICC, says William Pace, director of the Coalition for the ICC. He predicts that moves within the African Union to undermine the court will not succeed.

Moreno-Ocampo himself, also writing last week in The New York Times, cited Kenya as an indicator of the court’s effectiveness.

He argued that the possibility of charging Kenyans at the Hague has spurred “discussions on accountability for crimes committed during the last elections. Impunity is no longer an option.”

Three African Nobel Prize laureates — Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, South African peace advocate Desmond Tutu and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai — have also defended the ICC.

“We support the role of the International Criminal Court in bringing justice and accountability for the peoples of Sudan,” the three jointly declared last month.

Pace points out that 30 black African countries have ratified the treaty that authorises the court.

These countries, including Kenya, represent the largest regional bloc among the 109 nations that have formally recognised the ICC, Price adds.

The Libyan-led campaign against the court has been joined by Senegal, Djibouti and the Comoros islands as well as by Sudan. Richard Dicker, an analyst with Human Rights Watch, refers to their call for repudiation of the court as “an effort by a handful of countries to foist on others their regressive view that there should be no accountability for mass slaughter of civilians.”

Annan pointed out in his Times commentary that Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic each sought ICC intervention on the grounds that justice for atrocities could not be delivered by the countries themselves.

A total of 13 individuals from those countries, as well as from Sudan, have so far been charged by the ICC.

Pace argues that the indictment of Sudan’s leader for war crimes is not really what’s troubling the court’s African critics. “Many leaders aren’t worried about al-Bashir,” Pace suggests. “They’re worried about themselves.”

But Pace nonetheless views the Libyan-led assault on the ICC as the most serious threat to the court since the United States, under President George W. Bush, refused to endorse the treaty establishing the ICC.