India with ICC: Long way to go

by Manish Anand

International Criminal Court is now 100-member strong organisation. It came into existence in 2002 with Rome Convention as its background. Currently, its members are mostly small nations belonging to the European and African continents. It’s yet to get any significant membership from Asian and American countries. Hence, the second visit this year of ICC president and judge Mr Phillipe Crische to India recently to convince the Indian leadership for ratifying the Rome statue and joining the ICC.

ICC needs big nations like India, the United States, China and others on board to be really effective in its mandate. Its mandate, as set by the Rome statue, is to look into cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass rape, forced confinement and torture, Human Rights violations and others. It takes up cases only when judiciary of nations where incidents took place fail to give justice to victims or show symptoms of breakdown of judicial system. India and other nations are not impressed enough to join ICC so far. There seems no reason, either.

Reportedly, the United Progressive Government is inclined towards joining ICC. There is no harm if India joins. Rather, the gain will accrue in higher level of accountability by its people. The Gujrat chief minister Mr Narendra Modi could be prosecuted if India were party to ICC for his alleged connivance in the killings of innocents in the Gujrat riots of 2002.

But, to ratify the statue in the parliament, India needs more reasons. It would be proper for ICC to bring under its ambit crimes like acts and financing of terrorism, drug-peddling and others. Not only this, nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, the US must also be brought on the ICC’s board. India faces terrorism and drug-peddling threat from these countries except the US apart from shelters being provided to insurgents and criminals who commit large scale crimes in India. Task is tough, but if the US does ICC’s bidding, Indian concerns could be addressed.

India abhors the compulsory jurisdiction of ICC over the listed crimes. It wants an optional obligation which will only dilute the purpose and at one’s convenience matters could be referred to ICC for investigation. India also fears political use of ICC by big countries to arm-twist her. This has not much relevance as ICC is an independent entity separate from International Court of Justice which is a wing of the United Nations. ICC is the logical evolution of a globalised world order and growth in the standard of human civilization.

Mr Judge Krische did well to inform the Indian audience that ICC is not going to come shopping for cases in India. Rather, India could take ICC to higher level of legitimacy and efficiency. But, it’s a long way that ICC will have to travel India to ratify the Rome statue and maybe the scheduled 2006 review of ICC’s charter may throw answer to India’s participation in International Criminal Court.