Just when the specter of Adolph Hitler, the Nazis, and the Nuremberg trials began to dissipate from the world’s consciousness toward the end of the 19th century, another phantom began to loom large over a place known as Kosovo. This time, the genocidal leader targeting a people for extermination was named Milosevic. Because of the genocide and heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated by Milosevic, a global call for accountability and justice in the name of humanity arose from the world’s leaders. Other brutal dictators like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet never face retribution for their crimes against humanity.
In the face of new threats to humanity like Milosevic, the call arose for a permanent court with global jurisdiction to be created. This jurisdiction would pertain to the most serious international crimes, such as war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. In order to raise accountability for such actions, the United Nations diplomatic conference embraced a treaty to form an International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in the Netherlands. Yet, of the 141 members of the United Nations, only 120 voted in favor of the treaty with abstentions coming from such democratic role-model nations as the United States (Cassel 532). This analysis will review the reasons why an ICC is needed, including the need for more accountability as nations adopt democratic institutions-many for the first time. Also included will be the motivation behind the U.S. ratifying the treaty days before President Clinton left office.
The pressures for a world court with jurisdiction to hold states more accountable for their crimes against humanity have built continually throughout the 20th century. Stalin, the Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Pinochet, and Milosevic, have all been responsible for killing millions of people. Yet, few of these men were even charged with a crime, and none have seen jail time or faced other retributions for ...