The shadow of the ICC
According to the Guardian, the British ministry of defense is investigating several soldiers and interrogators for their conduct in Iraq. A number of British military interrogators may face war crimes charges after members of their unit filmed themselves while threatening and abusing Iraqi detainees at a secret prison near Basra, the high court heard today. ...
According to the Guardian, the British ministry of defense is investigating several soldiers and interrogators for their conduct in Iraq.
According to the Guardian, the British ministry of defense is investigating several soldiers and interrogators for their conduct in Iraq.
A number of British military interrogators may face war crimes charges after members of their unit filmed themselves while threatening and abusing Iraqi detainees at a secret prison near Basra, the high court heard today.
The men have been referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions (DSP) after an investigation considered whether they had breached the International Criminal Court Act, which prohibits war crimes.
The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has often insisted that the International Criminal Court can be a success even without many prosecutions of its own so long as the court alters the conduct of member states and their militaries. And he’s pointed to some evidence that the court is having precisely that kind of effect, in places as different as Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Russia. Moreno-Ocampo has argued that the Russian military took the ICC into account when it planned its offensive in Georgia and that "armies all over the world… are adjusting their standards and rules of engagement" to ensure that they don’t fall afoul of the court.
It’s possible to see this British investigation as evidence of that behavior-changing effect; would the British have been as vigilant about prosecuting their own absent the ICC’s looming presence? Of course the fact that these investigations are necessary points to a breakdown in prevention. And more fundamentally, skeptics will point out that relying on an abstract and almost unverifiable preventive function is mighty convenient for a court still struggling to secure its first conviction.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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