The Future of the International Criminal Court:

Reform, Consensus and Relations with the USA Iseghohime

Daniel Ehighalua

Routledge, New York, 2023, xvi + 248 pp.

ISBN: 978-1-032-44204-4

Aurif Muzafar

 

The International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC or Court) has recently been under severe criticism from different organisations and people for its inability to stop the genocide of the civilian population in Palestine and for failing to issue a warrant of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, after the request was made by the ICC prosecutor in May 2024.1 Even though the ICC finally issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and a former Hamas leader on 21st November 2024 - after a gap of almost six months - it is difficult to imagine whether powerful countries like the US and the UK will respond to the writ of the Court and help prevent further destruction in Palestine.2 While the ICC started functioning on 1st July 2002, after the Rome Statute of 1998 received ratification by the required number of 60 states, powerless people all over the world continue to be subjected to unimaginable atrocities with little or no help from institutions of great stature such as the ICC. The ICC has the jurisdiction to try crimes aimed at destroying whole populations and cultures, such as the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.3 ICC’s inaction can partly be attributed to the United States’ unflinching commitment to Israel - offering it military and diplomatic cover at every avenue.4 The USA’s association with the ICC has been marked by a number of complications as it was a signatory to the Rome Statute (hereafter Statute) but had not ratified it, citing the calls for ratification as a challenge to its sovereignty. This notion of “American exceptionalism” marked by hostility towards the ICC has played a massive part in where the ICC stands today in the eyes of the people who are condemned to a televised genocide. At the same time, their perpetrators are immune from the Court’s operations. It is this aversion to the international legal process by the US that Iseghohime Daniel Ehighalua examines in his book The Future of the International Criminal Court: Reform, Consensus, and Relations with the USA.