The idea of holding government leaders to human rights is great. Unfortunately, the ICC doesn't do anything of the sort, and so I wonder what situation we're in. Maybe it's good that the ICC exists as a first baby step toward government responsibility. Or maybe it's really bad since the ICC is effectively something for governments and the UN to point to to "prove they're doing something", a distraction, when in reality is governments and the UN are nothing and promoting impunity.

Milosevic got convicted because his own government wanted that. The government put in by the American campaign during the Yugoslav civil war. And that's basically the only way to get convicted before the ICC: if your own government wants it to happen. But the new government was far less popular than Milosevic so having him convicted in Amsterdam was very useful.

Funny how other people involved who also committed "international crimes" got let of. For example, in the Yugoslav war, at the Srebrenica massacre the leader of the UN forces, a Dutch commander by the name of Tom Karremans, tasked with preventing what happened not only committed war crimes with his forces, but also obviously let the situation escalate. He was given a medal by the Queen of the Netherlands, about 5km from the ICC building. Obviously there were people protesting during the presentation of the medal. Of course, I'm not claiming he was 1% as bad as Milosevic, but he was guilty.

It was all very convenient for the UN and the new Serbian government, as well as the US and allies, to get Milosevic convicted and not by a Serbian court, because of course the new government was very unpopular. That's the reason he got convicted in Amsterdam. Similar stories apply to all cases.

Except, of course, the Israeli case. That's the UN GA pushing to convict the leader of Israel. The ICC changed it's own rules TWICE to convict him (that was necessary because the case satisfies neither the territorial requirements nor the procedural rules of the ICC about who is allowed to bring cases) ... and it still went nowhere. That's why the comparison is made to the Dreyfus affair. Jewish "leader" goes free, French law was "changed" DURING the court case to convict him anyway. Note: in theory the law was not changed, the prosecution just openly admitted they were going to use different rules (NOT from the law) to convict him. Which is somewhat comparable to what the ICC did. Even though Netanyahu is milking it and of course he IS responsible to some extent.

Iranian, Sudanese, Myanmarese, Colombian, ... leaders get excused, half because they're still in power, the other half because governments don't want to be "humiliated" in Amsterdam. Arguably even the Netherlands and the UN itself (Tom Karremans was UN commander) interfered in a case to avoid humiliation, as specified above.

And given that that what usually happens at the ICC, I wonder what the point is. I love the idea of the ICC. But under the territorial limitations, and procedural rules, what's the point? For Milosevic it's perhaps great that he's convicted, as opposed to not convicted, but it would have been 100x better if he was convicted in Belgrade instead of Amsterdam.

Which is double bad, because Milosevic DID have the choice to keep fighting and it would have destroyed many more lives than he already did. He didn't. He eventually made the right choice, if you can stomach putting it like that. Which means this situation won't repeat. If, for example, if Iran's ayatollah, Khamenei junior has any say in the matter, Iran will fight to the death. Because if they don't he'll personally either be killed or locked up for life. Which means the only option for regime change in Iran is now fighting through the IRGC and executing Khamenei junior directly.

But the ICC will never convict Putin, unless they get the support from the Russian government. No Iranian or Hezbollah or Syrian or Chinese or North Korean or ... commander will ever be convicted there.

There's an argument to be made that the man sitting in Pennsylvania Avenue is a modern-day Milosevic himself. I'm sure they'd get along swimmingly.

Ehud Olmert was corrupt tho, he did have a plan to leave the west bank, it will be interesting to think where would we have been if it happens. Probably back to occupying sooner or later because of rocket attacks.

Why not? Survivors of the the Nazi regime were famously put on trial and executed. I'd say it's too early for that, the regime hasn't fallen yet.

You're not allowed to talk about Jewish xenophobia.

It’s still needed to protect said group from national socialism; from Arab national socialism that maintains an ethnic cleansing of Jews from most Middle East countries, and from Arab controlled areas of Palestine.

And now increasingly from Western Socialism which is reverting to endorse one and only one kind of racism.

I think your comment is more ambiguous than you realise. Who is the "them" at the end of your sentence?

Some would argue that Hamas continues to exist because no one has prosecutes its members.

Some would argue that Hamas exists because no one prosecutes those in the Israeli government (the "them" of the parent comment) who persecute Palestinians in a way that is bound to cultivate terrorism.

Who is them and who is us? People are dying and we’ve been tricked to treat this as if it were a football game.

And how lucky Israel allowed and facilitated the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to them.

And a time machine I guess? :P

How is that "rules for thee and not for me" of they didn't sign up and didn't want the ICC to have any jurisdiction for unsigned states (including for other countries)

Edit: I guess you could point out Biden justifying Putin's warrant as a hypocrisy.

Agreed mostly but there's some exceptions. Like the first gulf war, America did come to the aid of Kuwait as it was attacked by Iraq.

Of course this was motivated by oil interests and not human rights but I can't call them the 'bad guys' here.

Is supporting one ally a war of aggression? Explain your criteria.

Why wouldn't it be so "benign"? Unlike the USA, China seems to have pretty sane leadership in general.

If that's a talking point it's a stupid one. The Rome Statutes are only valid in territories that have agreed to be bound by them.

Where?

The ICC claims rights in territories where the sovereign power in that territory has signed and incorporated a treaty that grants those rights. ICC jurisdiction is domestic law.

Oh it's definitely a threat, and the damage is not potential but factual already. Consider 120+ children dead in a single airstrike on a school in Iran, or the current gasoline prices worldwide as a result of the unprovoked war they started. People killed, world economy damage, plus the damage to international alliances, institutions, and the rule of law. Just quick 3 examples of the actual damage, and that's only this year!

They're threatening multiple countries, sovereign territories and invaded/attacked two countries in a matter of 1 year.

If this is not a "threat", then what is your definition of one? If anything you could argue this is a step ABOVE threat, since US no longer threats like e.g. North Korea does, but it actively acts as a bully on a world-wide stage.

I've lived in the US for many years and while I appreciate my time there, I can definitely say that as of today, the US is the actual cancer of the world.

Is a cancerous tumour not a threat to life?

> The USA has a robust legal system that draws its powers from the people, who elect legislators that can rectify situations where the law is wrong or if the courts have wronged someone incorrectly.

Not sure why this is relevant, since the same holds true for any democratic country, no?

The latter is a domestic issue, nothing to do with the ICC probably.

Sure, but there is a difference between not wanting to take part and actively trying to sabotage it for everyone else.

Bush, Obama and Biden wanted to keep the US out of it. Trump wants to destroy it.

"The US isn't subject to it"

American citizens are subject to ICC jurisdiction if they commit crimes in an ICC-member country. Like US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Which is what freaks the US government out.

> It's absurd that I cannot pay cashless without using American companies

The infrastructure for it exists with instant SEPA transfers, and Wero is slowly developing into a useful system for retail payments, but without the EU mandating that banks and retailers must support it alongside Visa it will take a while for meaningful penetration to happen.

Why would those make a difference? The US elected the same corrupt madman twice. Why would things suddenly improve after this election?

That is a problem, for the EU, from a perspective of power and effectiveness. The problem for the US is, in part, due to the concentration of power in the presidency, for foreign affairs.

If the US chooses someone sane next time, reestablishing institutional power, and diffusing power to avoid chaos in the future, will have to be part of the plan.

> The problem is that the EU is not a country, it is a bloc. Each member state is a sovereign nation.

Yes, but

> It is up to each member state to decide how to respond to an increasingly hostile US.

is not true. A member state cannot, for example, decide that it's fine to import and sell US beef. It is perfectly possible to introduce EU laws that protect the population of Europe from the US using European banks as a weapon against law-abiding people.

> Which is why foreign actors such as US and Russia always seem to undermine the EU and foment dissent in the bloc. A unified Europe would be much harder to push around.

It's a scale. I, too, wish for a more tightly integrated Europe, but that doesn't mean there is no integration whatsoever today.

Perfectly exemplified by Russia pushing Sweden and Finland towards NATO in a matter of 1 or 2 years.