A rules-based order?
Reflections on the Iran war, the ICC and its prosecutor
Donald Trump said yesterday he was “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes by destroying Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran does not meet his deadline tonight to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“I’m not worried about it,” the US president said. “You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon.”
But it’s too soon to judge the impact of the Iran war on the rules-based international order — the international rule of law. Instead, I want to consider the damage it has done to the International Criminal Court.
How things used to be
Little more than 24 hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the ICC’s prosecutor Karim Khan KC issued a statement saying that “any person” who commits war crimes on the territory of Ukraine faced prosecution. A year later, Khan announced that he had been granted a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin.
Five days after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on 7 October 2023, Khan reminded “Palestinian nationals” that the ICC had jurisdiction over any war crimes they had committed. “We simply cannot live in a world”, he added later that month, “where burnings and executions and rapes and killings can take place as if they are normal, as if they are to be tolerated, as if they can happen without consequence.”
But we have heard nothing from the prosecutor’s office about Iran.
Khan took leave of absence last May while investigators continued to examine rape allegations against him. As far as I can see, his only public comment since then seems to have been about the way those allegations have been handled. As I shall suggest, not even the BBC could done a worse job of investigating sexual misconduct allegations against one of its most prominent figures.
In Khan’s absence, his responsibilities have been shared by his two deputies, Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang. They have not made any public comments about the Iran war either. Neither warned Iranian leaders that the ICC has asserted jurisdiction over territory where they have committed war crimes.
Office of the prosecutor
Some of my readers will think it’s not the job of a prosecutor to advise criminals that they face prosecution. But that would be to misunderstand the ICC prosecutor’s role.
