Jolie good show, but ICC lacks teeth due to political indifference

IT WAS left to Angelina Jolie, watching the case from the public gallery, to put her finger on the significance of yesterday’s war crimes conviction of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga by the International Criminal Court.

Lubanga, whose paramilitaries wreaked havoc across the Democratic Republic of Congo, was found guilty of snatching children off the streets and turning them into killers.

“These children will feel there is no impunity for what happened to them,” said the actress and respected campaigner on behalf of Africa. The court in The Hague will hope that her “no impunity” message radiates beyond the ten child victims, and that warlords the world over will take note.

Yet the greater truth is that the Lubanga conviction illustrates the weakness of international justice. The ICC has been operating in The Hague for nine years, has a staff of 571 and a budget of £80 million, yet this is its only conviction. The ICC’s detention centre holds only five suspects for trial, a meek return on the seven warzones now under investigation.

Some blame lies with teething troubles, yet the biggest handicaps come via the international community.

Hague judges can only hear cases from states that are members of the ICC, or, in the case of Libya, when the United Nations Security Council decrees it. But to date the council has been too divided to allow ICC prosecutors to investigate crimes in Gaza, Iraq, Sri Lanka or Syria.

Even when indictments are issued, the ICC has no police force to bring in suspects. Only the international community can do that, and too often lacks the will or the capacity.

To date, the wider world has found no way to arrest Sudan’s president Omar Bashir or Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, both indicted by the court.

Meanwhile, Libya’s decision not to send Saif al-Gaddafi, son of the late dictator, to The Hague in favour of a local trial using an untested legal system has been met with silence from the international community.

Only more international support is likely to see the ICC start to fulfil its mandate, not just in jailing war criminals, but giving Ms Jolie’s message some punch.