Fiona

Please name reasonably recent examples, preferably ones where it is not the US doing it.

“NATO powers such as the United Kingdom and the United States support the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen primarily through arms sales and technical assistance.[396] France had also made recent military sales to Saudi Arabia”

“The tribunal requested a thorough investigation as some of the evidence indicated “possible acts of genocide”.[28] Its panel found Sri Lanka guilty of genocide at its 7–10 December 2013 hearings in Berman, Germany. It also found that the US and UK were guilty of complicity.”

" 2008 report by the Rwandan government-sponsored Mucyo Commission accused the French government of knowing of preparations for the genocide and helping to train Hutu militia members."

“Since the war began, both regional and international powers have been actively involved in the conflict. A number of reports have been made alleging that China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were all providing military support for the Ethiopian government via the sale of weaponized drones.”

“October 2023, political analyst Lena Obermaier argued that Germany is complicit in Israel’s war crimes against Gaza.”

"On 12 December 2023, Human Rights Watch said that selling weapons to Israel could make the UK complicit in war crimes. "

"In March, OXFAM released a statement detailing its intention, alongside several other NGOs,[p] to sue Denmark to prevent arms sales to Israel, warning that by selling arms Denmark is “complicit in violations of international humanitarian law … and a plausible genocide”.

Selling weapons to parties engaged in a conflict, to an extent even if they are used for warcrimes is not among the list of crimes that the ICC has jurisdiction for. You can argue that it should be on the list and I’d be inclined to agree with you, but the entire point of a court like this is that it REALLY has to do things by the book to maintain its acceptance.

And the ICC is kinda doing the opposite. Really not comparable, as I said.

Lol, the ICC isn’t run by economically advanced states? They haven’t primarily prosecuted people in poor states?

Not really, it’s actually quite diverse!

People in those rich states never participated in war crimes?

That’s an unfair standard, considering that the ICC has so far sentenced 8 (EIGHT!) people from 2 (TWO) case-groups to prison, both of which concerned civil wars in Africa.

And how many POC were prosecuted vs white people?

Define white… They are prosecuting 6 Russians, 3 Israelis, 3 Georgians, 3 Palestinians and 1 person from Myanmar of 65 people total, the remainder being from a variety of African countries.

three case groups (Georgia, Russia, Israel) is something that you would have justify.

Sure, western Europeans historically haven’t viewed serbs as “white”. We already talked about Israel.

Okay, you can of course say that no one prosecuted is white, by setting the standards for being white arbitrarily high. If you demand someone whose ancestors for the last 10 generations have lived in a Norwegian Fjord, then yes, none of them are white. Let me guess, you are from the US? Because this really isn’t a European perspective, the entire distinction between white and non-white matters a lot less here. And not even because there is necessarily less racism, but because the racism that is around isn’t really about whiteness.

The thing is: Since the Iraq-war most European countries neither had large civil wars, nor did they really participate in other wars that were not UN-sanctioned.

Ahh yes, the UN is immune from unethical wars…

Not necessarily, but it has done reasonably well with regards to what it sanctioned and is the relevant body who decides on the legality of wars. Which is what matters here, not whether or not you or me agree with every individual decision.

The fact of the matter is that they are doing more in Africa simply because Africa has a lot of civil wars

And why exactly does Africa have a lot of civil wars…? Hmmm…maybe the hundreds of years of western colonialism and interventionist actions on the continent might have something to do with it?

Yes, but most of those colonialists are no longer available to be judged and since the events predate the Rome statute wouldn’t be accessible to it anyways. History can explain things, but it doesn’t justify or excuse things. At the end of the day, there are more warcrimes in Africa than in Europe, East-Asia and the Americas today.

I guess that is why it went against most of those countries and prosecuted Netanjahu?

Only to have it’s own member states ignore the court they belong to?

So far they haven’t and there have also definitely be some that made it clear that they will comply with the rules, as well as some that tried to avoid giving clear statements.

The ICC is independent, that’s the whole point!

So long as they don’t prosecute anyone from the G7… Sure.

They don’t have jurisdiction for the US and for the other 6 there is no clear precedent. I would expect most of them to comply, though it is unlikely to come up because most of them would likely prosecute their criminals themselves if it reached the point where the ICC would look.

Who should then prosecute those crimes that are otherwise not accessible to prosecution? The ICC only gets active if there is no serious attempt at prosecution in the country itself!

Lol, I’ve said this several times. I don’t inherently think the ICC itself is evil or anything, I just don’t think they’re really effective at doing anything unless it fits within the geopolitical will of its wealthiest member states.

But that is no longer an argument about whether it would deserve the right to execute people.

The problem is systemic in nature, and no matter what anyone in the ICC believes no international body is truly independent.

It has definitely started to show some attitude with Israel. that’s more than most other institutions can say of themselves.

Frances foreign minister has already claimed that he’s immune from prosecution…

Which is disgusting, but we will see what happens when it actually happens and in any case the fault of France, not of the ICC.

Also, weren’t you the one claiming that the “desk” perpetrators should be the ones executed. I guess that sentiment ends conveniently with the warlord and not the people who enable them?

What makes you think that? If you want to hear me say that Kissinger should have been sentenced to be burned at the stakes, I have zero reservations to give you that.

In a lot of cases these warlords are sponsored by Western nations trying to destabilize governments that politically align against them.

Please name reasonably recent examples, preferably ones where it is not the US doing it. You can talk about a lot of meddling, but it is really not a common thing of the current west supporting warlords against even remotely legit governments. And the goal is usually very much not destabilization, even if that may be the effect. When we are talking about criminal law, intention matters.

I beg to differ. It’s a very similar asymmetrical hierarchical structure that allows people in power to enforce rules on people who don’t have power, for engaging in the same crimes as the people in power.

And the ICC is kinda doing the opposite. Really not comparable, as I said.

Sure…not a big problem.

Fair, but again: I’m not super interested in the US, because we already know that it is a shithole country.

I never made that claim, I just said that it’s not really a justice system if one race is allowed to do crimes and other races are not.

But that’s the thing:

Lol, sure. I’m sure the foreign minister of France is sticking their necks out for a genocider from Kenya…

Please, name one white person who the ICC has put in jail.

That’s an unfair standard, considering that the ICC has so far sentenced 8 (EIGHT!) people from 2 (TWO) case-groups to prison, both of which concerned civil wars in Africa.

Hell, name 1 white person who the ICC has prosecuted before 2020.

First of all excluding all the white people that they charged since then in three case groups (Georgia, Russia, Israel) is something that you would have justify.

And who should they have prosecuted? Blair obviously (and they did infect investigate it!), but other than that I don’t see many obvious candidates that are very clearly missing over whom the court has jursidiction. The thing is: Since the Iraq-war most European countries neither had large civil wars, nor did they really participate in other wars that were not UN-sanctioned.

The fact of the matter is that they are doing more in Africa simply because Africa has a lot of civil wars that involve a significant amount of particularly illegal forms of warfare such as child-soldiers. So yes, there are more war-crimes in unstable regions.

At the end of the day the ICC is a political body of countries whom have geopolitical agenda, and are willing to turn a blind eye when it suits them.

I guess that is why it went against most of those countries and prosecuted Netanjahu?

Like: It’s actually pretty clear at this point that they are acting increasingly as an independent and neutral instance.

My friend, I’m not saying that warlords shouldn’t be prosecuted. I’m just pointing out that the ICC is not a non biased judicial system, at least not to the point where id trust them with the ability to prescribe capital punishment.

But you can’t argue that based on what other countries are saying whom they are going to extradite. The ICC is independent, that’s the whole point!

Pointing out hypocrisy is not a whataboutism. I never once validated crimes of anyone’s crimes because other crimes occurred that were not policed. My original rebuttal still stands true, the ICC isn’t non biased enough to prescribe death warrants.

Who should then prosecute those crimes that are otherwise not accessible to prosecution? The ICC only gets active if there is no serious attempt at prosecution in the country itself!

Obviously I believe that the rome statute needs to be signifiantly extended and the ICC should for starters receive flat out universal jurisdiction: A big reason for why so few western people have been charged at it (though: Netanjahu and Puttler are now on the list!) is that a lot of the stuff that could be charged at it happened between nations that were not members of the ICC, meaning that it lacked jurisdiction.

Right, but even when people like netanjahu are charged by the ICC, the wealthy European members states fail to enforce their convictions.

That has not happened yet. It may happen, but let’s not accuse them of things they haven’t done yet.

Even today you can also turn it around and say that it first and foremost gives justice to victims of color. Which is arguably much more important than the skin-color distribution of the genocidal trash that the convict!

I think that’s kinda europe patting themselves on the back for “solving” an issue they often caused in the first place. I don’t think putting retired African war criminals on trial is very meaningful when that war criminal was empowered by European colonialism in the first place.

It was still them committing the war crimes. Let’s not pretend that Africans are somehow infantile children who are not responsible for their own actions. And the European involvement in those cases is usually also far more removed than that accussation makes it seem.

On that note, it bears mentioning that there is no right to get away with crimes just because others do!

Eh… I think that’s highly reductive. If I made the same claims about about the systemic racism in American policing would you be defending the American justice system?

The sorry excuse for a justice system that the US has is for many reasons a whole different can of worms. To make it short: The issues with white people getting away with shit more often than black people (and I’m not convinced that that is as much a problem if we are talking about homicides, a handful of very high profile cases not withstanding the general trend) doesn’t mean that the solution is to let black people get away with first degree murder. The issue is that white people can get away with shit, not that black people can’t!

Would you interpret that the American justice system is giving justice to POC when they arrest POC because they are the most victimized segment of our society? That ignores the systemic nature of how the victimization occurred in the first place.

That is a completely different situation. A better analog would be if the federal police investigated murders happening in predominantly black communities more often than murders in predominantly white communities, pointing out that they are more common and that the local police forces seem to put more efforts into it in the later cases, making outside intervention less necessary. And yeah, if that was what was happening, it would indeed not be racist but completely justified.

The problem is that that is not what is happening in the US, but it is kinda what is happening within the countries that ratified the Rome statute.

At the end of the day, it’s not really a justice system if certain segments of society are immune from penalties being applied to only the disadvantaged participants. At some point it’s just a tool utilized to negate the competition from practicing the same crimes that others have utilized to achieve their position on the global scale.

They are not immune though: The justice system is fully prepared to treat them like everyone else, the problem is that sometimes it doesn’t have jurisdiction (when something happens between non-member countries) or where you have to be concerned about whether corrupt cops are willing to let the criminal go despite an arrest warrant.

Yes, a lot of the west can be very hypocritical and the US is often absolutely awful, but it is really important to still look at who is on the other side and not to get blinded by accusations of hypocrisy, which is really just another form of whataboutism that in this case is even more inappropriate than in most others.

Obviously I believe that the rome statute needs to be signifiantly extended and the ICC should for starters receive flat out universal jurisdiction: A big reason for why so few western people have been charged at it (though: Netanjahu and Puttler are now on the list!) is that a lot of the stuff that could be charged at it happened between nations that were not members of the ICC, meaning that it lacked jurisdiction. Now obviously all the responsible government-members of the “coalition of the willing” should be charged for the crime of aggression, and it is extremely disappointing that they aren’t, but since then the fact of the matter is that most of the rich states that are members have reasonably functional criminal justice systems and largely refrained from severe enough crimes that they would fall under ICC-jurisdiction.

Also: Even today you can also turn it around and say that it first and foremost gives justice to victims of color. Which is arguably much more important than the skin-color distribution of the genocidal trash that the convict! On that note, it bears mentioning that there is no right to get away with crimes just because others do!

My personal take on the death penalty is a bit more nuanced than most people’s, in that I support it for desk-perpetrators who commit crimes against international humanitarian law (crimes against humanity, starting a war of aggression, …) or dismantle/overthrow democracies. Desk perpetrator here means that the person cannot just participate in physical action but has to be a decision maker using institutional power. This should ideally be handed out by the ICC and no other court.

If I use this model, it tells me that the death penalty here is not justified: I’m not convinced that the bank she led had enough power to qualify as giving her sufficient institutional power to qualify and even if it did, theft and bribery are not crimes against humanity.

But yeah, I’m not going to cry if they go through with it anyways.

The backup-generator seems to be the one semi-legit use-case that keeps coming up where few people have been able to present a significantly better alternative.

The scientist in me is sooo tempted by the idea of setting up a website where people have to classify pictures of cis and well-passing trans people by AGAB to really drive the point home that no, those fuckers CANNOT tell. They can usually only tell when the person in question is in the progress of medical transition which is an instance of “no shit Sherlock, why do you think we want to get this done as quickly as possible”. And yes, Enbys are a bit of a different story, but even a lot of them pass very well as the opposite of their AGAB, even though they often don’t even identify as that.

The big issue with this is that the vast majority of people making those kinds of statements are incapable of thinking rationally and instead just continue being bigots.