Sakharov Prize for Criminal Court: The Vision of a World of Law

By awarding the Sakharov Prize to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its staff, the European Parliament is symbolically siding with an institution that has had to contend with strong headwinds since its founding. However, no one imagined that the United States government would one day issue an ultimatum and threaten to “put an end to the Court” when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in July 1998 after long negotiations with the votes of 120 states.

This was intended to make the wish, cherished since the Second World War and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, a reality, to counteract widespread impunity for the most serious human rights crimes with a permanent international judicial authority. No one, not even a head of state, government or army, should now be able to be confident that they will never be prosecuted for crimes. Experiences that had previously been made in the ad hoc tribunals on the genocide in Rwanda and the crimes of the Yugoslav wars were incorporated into the structure and functioning of the new court.

The then US government under President Bill Clinton was continuously involved in the negotiations. German negotiators, like the later ICC judge Hans-Peter Kaul, visibly suffered from all the hurdles and special provisions that the US negotiators negotiated into the document. But it was clear that the Court would be much stronger if the US were on board, so they were willing to make some concessions. Only to see Clinton withdraw his signature, the US withdraw from the statute and take precautions to prevent US citizens from ever being tried in court.

In 2002, after the 60th ratification of the Statute by a state party, the ICC began its work in The Hague - practically at the same time as the start of the “War on Terror” declared by the US government under George W. Bush. But the ICC had no jurisdiction over the associated crimes, from torture to CIA secret prisons - the US was not a state party. Instead, in the first few years, virtually all of the ICC's investigations and criminal proceedings were directed against defendants from the African continent. The first arrest and conviction was of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga.

In view of the US war of aggression against Iraq from 2003 and its devastating consequences, which went completely unpunished, there was loud criticism of double standards in the application of international law, particularly in countries in the Global South. Some African states, including South Africa, considered leaving, although only Burundi actually did so. However, the Court itself could do little to change this.

During Donald Trump's first term in office, the USA imposed sanctions on the Court and individual employees. They were repealed under Trump's successor Joe Biden. With Trump's second term in office and the arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then Defense Minister Joav Galant for crimes in Gaza in 2024, the tone from Washington became noticeably worse. In the same year it was revealed that Israeli intelligence had carried out nine years of espionage and intimidation campaigns against the court.

The Court has not been able to fully realize its vision of a world in which rulers also adhere to international law and human rights violations are consistently prosecuted. 24 years after its founding, it is now a matter of at least defending what structure has been created so far. The awarding of the Sakharov Prize may not be enough.