Personally I don’t really have much faith in the ICC; its premise is flawed since great powers will never be deferential to a foreign court system anyways.
The ICC is a step in the right direction in the post-WW2 world, a shame though that repressive countries filled to the brim with war criminals cannot help but see it as an affront and such a threat to them.
I mean, they're right. International rules-based order is a threat to war criminals. The real shame is certain countries having the power to enforce rules-based order and not doing so (or failing to do so).
Is it the people that make up the system, or the system that makes the people? In a country with rule of law, any individual in the government should be extraditable (for valid reasons) without it being a threat to the overall system.
The ICC is overwhelmingly popular with most countries and people, most people who oppose it are those from countries which harbor war criminals and try to make their opposition look like it stems from legal issues with international jurisdiction, and not the truth which is to protect their country's ability to commit war crimes unabated.
We don’t have good enough contemporary global polling to confidently say that a majority personally supports the ICC.
However, I suspect you’re right that most people probably support the idea of the ICC but countries choose not to be part for a variety of reasons, other that “harboring war criminals”.
The following countries are not party to the Rome Statute, which is what established the ICC:
United States, China, Russia, India, Israel, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.
ICJ and ECJ seem fine. I agree that the ICC is toothless (unless it’s investigating Africa for some reason). But if countries agree to its jurisdiction that’s basically glorified arbitration. The Philippine with Duterte show the benefits to a population to submitting to jurisdiction. I bet a lot of Americans being abused by ICE wish we had a check on our political leaders outside our own legal system.
Sure. You know what, I don't know enough about it to argue if it is. What I can say is it isn't toothless. International treaties can create robust judicial systems.
The first "supranational" court system was created with the USA fully on-board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremburg_trials
In fact, they liked it so much that they re-enacted it at home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsequent_Nuremberg_trials
Saying the security council works is... A perspective.
During the general assembly there were plenty of comments as to how it's not representative at all. There are 5 members with veto power (us, Russia, uk, France, china), why these? Because they won the WW2? The whole southern hemisphere doesn't hold veto power.
The security council works very well, if you're one of the 5 permanent members.
International treaties and institutions are generally good to vertebrate and regulate the interactions between countries. But one must not forget they are make believe as they are unenforceable. So when you threaten to arrest and prosecute allies of the US outside the legal system of the US, you are declaring yourself an enemy of the US and treated as such.
In many cases this is simply because we did not sign and ratify parts of the convention updates, thus we are not a signatory to those statutes. No way to truly punish those that aren't willing participants, except to make them unwilling participants.
You can complain about well America is sanctioning countries I disagree with, but it also affects countries you would agree with. When we don't have sanctions power perhaps military force gets used more.
Regardless of what happens both the EU and America are still within each other's spheres. That's not going to change anytime soon. We've gone through much worse.
True, neither has China, India, or Russia.
Or (not sure if better or worse), they the "great powers" are stupid and they did not hear of the "Streisand effect".
That's not nothing.
Obviously its power is limited when it comes to prosecuting people currently in power or people that have favorable standing with their current host country. It can only make the live of those people a little less pleasant by issuing arrest warrants that limit their ability to travel internationally. But governments do fall from time to time, and when that happens the ICC provides a solid mechanism for prosecuting them for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in a way that is fair and has rules that were solidly established before the crime was committed
And in a certain sea-side part of a certain country, there's active bulldozing and paving over hard white leftovers of evidence of the misshaps that could later be prosecuted if they weren't so effectively crushed and hidden.
Still, some justice is still justice.