Is there any chance Benjamin Netanyahu and company will be arrested by the International Criminal Court? Not in a million, as they say. It is as fruitless an attempt as it is to bark at the moon, besides it is only a paper moon, after all.

The charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity are serious and seem to carry weight. Members of 124 countries of the ICC, all signatories to the treaty established in 1998, the Rome Statute, ratified on 1 July 2002, are agreed. Now they are legally obliged to arrest Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and a slain Hamas leader, Mohamed Deif.

What joy. Justice at last, provided they set foot on any of said territories. An admirable effort on the part of the ICC had they not be shrouded with criticism and doubt.

Who will take the ICC seriously? It has made a bit of noise for sure, but is there any guarantee that the men will be tried or even arrested?

Dozens of countries are not ICC parties, notably the powerful countries of the US, China, Russia, and Israel —not to mention Iraq, Libya, Qatar, Yemen and other Arab states.

Nobody will take seriously the ICC since it often makes a mockery of justice.

Point in fact, when the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin pertaining to war crimes in Ukraine, he never blinked an eye, continued with his war without consequence.

As for the US, all hell broke loose over the ICC warrant, fundamentally rejecting the court’s decision. How dare they? “The ICC issuance of arrest warrants are outrageous” said the US president. The White House “remains deeply concerned”, not over the massacre of 44,000 Gaza citizens, rather at the offence of “the troubling process of errors that led to this decision”.

Blind, deaf and dumb, the lack of concern of the US, is in itself an act of inhumanity. Even certain US senators threatened to take legislative action against the ICC.

And justice for some, such is life.

Undoubtedly, there is much to find fault with the ICC. It has not accomplished much in the last two decades and much could have done. They gave a deaf ear to cries of mercy by serious crimes against humanity. Thousands of cases were snubbed except for a handful of insignificant proceedings.

Without any independent police force or prison the court relies on it 124 members for cooperation. While it is under legal obligation, the ICC cannot force the states to cooperate. The state can retire itself from providing its assistance to a case without repercussions. This basically fails the whole concept of the institution of attaining peace.

Even current cases of the Congo, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya have refused to cooperate with the ICC in the arrest of potential suspects. The court needs no jurisdiction to act unless the state cooperates.

Granted, the ICC is not the Spanish Inquisition — after all, it is merely complementary. It relies on the concurrence of the member states.

Some powerful states do not intend to collaborate with the ICC when it is against their interest. What can the ICC do?

We painfully remember that in the past 60 years the omnipotent organisation of the United Nations has done near to nothing — wars raged; peace destroyed on a daily basis. Could the ICC do more? Do less? There is not a thread of respect for either establishments, with inevitable conclusions.

Because of the many limitations of the ICC, they are left with “much ado about nothing”. They can’t invade countries; they can’t intervene in any crime; they have no central government. It is always at the mercy of others. Were it not for the nation of South Africa to present the ICC charges against the state of Israel for committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, there would be a universal state of silence.

After a year of deliberation, since December 2023, the ICC finally came to its weak attempt at “reasonable grounds to believe war crimes have been committed.”

“What good came of it all, at last?”

The ICC has lofty ideals, much like democracy. The results are dwarfed by reality. “It is not in the writing,” as they say, “it is in the acting.”

Not much will be acting anytime soon, if ever.

The ICC is often quoted as “useless, incompetent, corrupt and misunderstood”. Such odds are insurmountable and there is more — it is underfunded, under-utilised, badly- managed, and ineffective.

With the US out of the equation, the ICC is crippled at best. Fiercely shielding its allies, especially “Baby” Israel, some prefer “Mama”, we are left with the inevitable two-tier inequality — one standard reserved for the US and its allies, always above the law, versus the standard for everyone else.

The scenario is predictable — it is unlikely that Netanyahu or Gallant will be visiting France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, South Africa and a few other countries anytime soon. Some might even cut off diplomatic contacts.

They could, however, roam all over the states of the US at will.  

A few nuisances will complicate the transfer of weapons from Israel to certain European countries, but the US is up to the task without doubt.

Despite all the embarrassment, the ICC is necessary.

Someday, someone will have a real court, to dispense true justice for all, some time.

“The worst form of injustice is pretended justice”.

                   Plato (428-348 BC)

* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly