Examine the workings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

The ICC and the ICJ share some logistical/organisational similarities. Both are based in The Hague, Netherlands, and they are both permanent judicial organs of the UN; the ICJ is the more main EU court however. They differ however, in some of the more technical nuances of their workings. While the ICJ has 15 judges, the ICC has 18; both are elected for nine year terms, the first by the UN General Assembly, and the ICC justices are elected by an Assembly of the member countries. Furthermore, while the ICJ cannot initiate cases itself, but instead can only address those that have been referred to it by other UN bodies, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor (Fatou Bensounda (Gambia)) can launch investigations of her own accord. The ICJ and the ICC differ also in terms of their purpose. The ICJ focusses mainly on technical legal disputes between member states, mainly around issues of sovereignty. This can be shown by the 1992 border dispute the ICJ resolved between El Salvador & Honduras, as well as between Nigeria & Cameroon in 2002. By contrast, the ICC only prosecutes the four international crimes established in the Rome Statute (1998): genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of oppression. This can be shown by their sentencing of Jean Pierre Bemba (VP of Democratic Republic of Congo) for crimes such as the use of child soldiers. The ICC and the ICJ also share the problem of states not accepting their jurisdiction, although to different extents. Not all states accept the jurisdiction of either the ICJ or the ICC. For instance, in 2017, only 72 out of 193 countries agreed to be subject to all ICJ rulings, and there is no guarantee that the ICJ’s decisions will have the weight of the UNSC behind them: coercive force can only be used if ‘international peace and security’ are threatened. For instance, in 2018 the ICJ found in favour of Iran over Trump’s reimposition of economic sanctions, arguing that it breached the 2015 multilateral Iran Deal. However, the US refused to change course, claiming that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the matter. Similarly, around 70% of the worlds’ population does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICC, including countries such as China, the US and India. However, more countries accept the ICC’s jurisdiction than the ICJ, with 123 countries agreeing to be subject to their rulings. Lastly, both the ICC and the ICJ have achieved uneven success. In particular, the ICJ achieved successful resolutions in the disputes between Cambodia & Thailand over the Temple of Preah Villear in 2013, as well as the 2002 territorial dispute between Nigeria & Cameroon. Similarly, the ICC has managed to sentence 7 Congolese war criminals including the Vice-President of the DRC was crimes such as sexual violence as a weapon of war. This reaffirms the liberal principle of a ‘global community’ able to intervene in the actions of other nation-states to prevent the breaching of rights. However, in other respects, there have been reassertions of statist realism that threaten that liberal principle: Putin withdrew his signature from the Rome Statute after threats that Russia might be taken to court. Similarly, the weakness of liberal norms and institutions to regulate the actions of nation-states can be shown by Burundi leaving the ICC in 2017 over allegations of neo-colonialism as a result of the ICC only ever indicting Africans.