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Comment by preommr | Hacker News Reader

The countries you listed are basically all the world players that exert outside influence. It's easy for a country like Canada to sit on the sidelines and go along with orgs like the ICC since we're not really under threat, nor is it something we've grown into.

Watch the ICC challenge Canada's sovereignty repeatedly on issues that we hold important, and see how fast our government decides not to recognize their authority.

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The ICC is not challenging any country's sovereignty, it's prosecuting criminals whose crimes fall outside the jurisdiction of a single country. The fact that the US has "pressured" the ICC (while not even being a signatory) to not go after Israel, and that Israel has been harassing them, shows that the West is not at all on a higher ground morally than anyone else. They're doing the same thing: killing, waging unjustified wars, spying on and harassing people trying to do good. I am ashamed of what we, the collective West, are doing. The rule of law doesn't mean anything to us if it goes against our interests.

If ICC was doing anything it would have charged the Iranian leadership for example. Yet in practice it's political organization with no morale.

Iran is a signatory but not (yet) a party to the Rome Statute, and as such the ICC does not have jurisdiction in Iran unless explicitly given by Iran (similar to what Ukraine did following the Russian invasion). Palestine is a member, so crimes against humanity committed in the occupied territories are under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Don’t get me wrong. The Iranian government absolutely should go straight to the Hague for their crimes against the Iranian people. But this whataboutism does not dissolve the crimes of others.

> Watch the ICC challenge Canada's sovereignty repeatedly on issues that we hold important

That's not likely to happen ...

it seems that once Canada embraced the ICC https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re...

    Canada became the first country in the world to incorporate the obligations of the Rome Statute into its national laws when it adopted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWCA) on June 24, 2000. Canada was then able to ratify the Rome Statute on July 9, 2000.

it gained a retroactive free pass on "stuff that happened"

    https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/lawyer-says-international-criminal-court-declines-request-to-open-residential-school-investigation/

    A lawyer who was part of a group lobbying the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Canada and the Catholic Church over the residential school system says they’ve been turned down.

    “The ICC prosecutor declined to open a preliminary investigation,” says Andrew Phypers, one of a dozen lawyers who wrote the ICC requesting an investigation. “Part of their reasoning was that they felt they were prevented as the deaths occurred before Canada ratified the crimes against humanity law.”

Regardless of the merits of the case, that's a solid "No." on even just having a look.

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