It’s good to consider this Darfur indictment problem alongside the Joseph Kony and Co. indictment problem– specifically, to consider the great role that Luis’s indictments of the Ugandan LRA leaders have had in prolonging the state of war in Northern Uganda that has kept the vast bulk of the Acholi people and other Ugandans stranded in IDP camps for many years now.

So munch for the ICC’s claimed “responsibility” to the victims, eh?

In fact, that points to a much broader problem with the claim that the ICC’s activities can help usher in a new era of universal jurisdiction that transcends national boundaries. A national government, when it operates a court system, is also assumed to have some direct responsibility for the wellbeing of the citizens within its jurisdiction. (As per “sovereignty as responsibility” and the R2P.) But the ICC has no such responsibility. Its prosecutor is responsible only to the ASP (most of whose member states are located far from Africa, and many of which are involved in acts of continuing neocolonial discrimination against Africa in the global marketplace.) So the prosecutor– who has a strong interest in keeping the budgets, salaries, pension plans etc of the ICC going in good shape– meanwhile has no corresponding ties of accountability to the communities whose wellbeing he so drastically affects.

Regarding the LRA indictments, the Gulu-based Justice and Reconciliation Project has been doing some great work on some of the implications of the ICC’s work there. Most recently, they’ve started a new blog to discuss the case of indictee (and former child soldier) Dominic Ongwen.

I have explored many of these issues in my 2006 book “Amnesty After
Atrocity?” and in the work I’ve done on Uganda (and indeed, also on Darfur.)

I would urge readers here to look especially at some of the issues I raise about accountability and the peace-vs-justice issue in the last chapter of my book.