There are only 3 ways a case can be heard in the International Criminal Court.
- If the state committing the acts ratified the ICC
- If the state where the acts occur has ratified the ICC
- If the Security council decides to refer a case.
Since most war crimes will tend to be committed domestically by governments that haven’t ratified the ICC, the only way to actually refer anything important is through step 3. But then what happens if the security council refers a case, how do they actually get their hands on the accused? Does a large scale military invasion take place, are special forces sent in to kidnap leaders (like they were in Iraq or Somalia), does the court have to wait until the government voluntarily gives the people up?
If it’s a two-bit, penny-ante country, the Security Council calls on a real country to go get them. If it’s a country with any amount of power, then the Security Council wrings its hands and moans. In other words, UN business as usual.
Special forces have been used in the Bosnian Serb republic to capture Serbian war crimes suspects. In a few rare cases, people will hand themselves in (generally if they feel they’re about to be invade, betrayed or killed). But as Dogface says, it is largely a matter of political willpower.
I am trying to find where in the Roman Statute it talks about enforcement but i cannot pinpoint it. I saw some about how the case would be referred to INTERPOL, but that serves no purpose if the home state hasn’t ratified the statute. i would assume that all the countries that have ratified the Roman Statute would be required to arrest the person if they visited their country, kindof like the situation where Britian cooperated with Spain to arrest Pinochet when Spain wanted him for war crimes. Maybe even the signatories would be required to arrest them. There are 89 ratifications & 138 signatories last time i checked.
It would be disappointing if the court had no military enforcement arm (whether special forces or military invasion). That is like a courthouse with no police.
INTERPOL is a pure information organization, with no real enforcement power aside from what individual countries allow them. Countries that ratify the court would be required to follow the terms of the treaty inasmuch as any country is required to adhere to a treaty to which it has agreed–as much or as little as they desire, subject to the power of other countries to force them to change their desires.
The international “court” has no enforcement arm of its own. It has to go begging to other countries. International “law” is really just a set of gentleman’s agreements. There is no real body of international enforcement that is beyond the power of some individual state or another. One can wave around “court” decisions until the entropy death of the universe to no effect at all.
In some ways, this international “court” has less enforcement power than did Eleanor of Aquitaine’s “Court of Love”.