Writing in USA Today, Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan, interim dean of The University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs and an expert in international affairs, says that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has sufficiently large-scale problems that it may be time to consider a complete rebuild.
"The ICC has a credibility problem that is serious, documented and largely self-inflicted," Dr. Sheehan writes. "Two decades of prosecutorial failure, financial impropriety and structural governance breakdowns have left the court unable to fulfill its founding mandate, while it nevertheless insists on claiming the moral authority to judge the world's most powerful democracies. That combination is unsustainable and it is a reason—not merely a pretext—to reconsider whether this institution merits preservation in its current form."
With a less-than-stellar record of prosecutorial successes, the ICC, he says, "is not a court that can credibly hold the world's worst actors to account."
Abandoning the court's mission, however, is not the solution.
"What the United States and its democratic partners owe the world is not a defense of this court but a serious commitment to designing a successor capable of doing what the ICC could not," Dr. Sheehan writes. "That means a court with a narrower, more enforceable jurisdictional mandate; a membership anchored in democracies with functioning domestic legal systems and genuine judicial independence; transparent governance; meaningful accountability for its leadership; and evidentiary standards rigorous enough to produce convictions that hold on appeal."
Read Dean Sheehan's opinion piece in USA Today.
Learn more about Prof. Ivan Sascha Sheehan and The University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs.