International Criminal Court Investigation (Essay Sample)

International Criminal Court Investigation
Name
Institution
Background
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an international tribunal established in July 2002 for the prosecution of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. During its formation, the statute of Rome was adopted in the International Conference in Rome as held on July 17 1998 (William 2008). The temporal jurisdiction of the ICC commenced on July 1, 2002, and as of 2014, the treaty had been signed by one hundred and thirty nine states. The governing body of the ICC was later elected by the courts Assembly of States Parties in February 2003. The judicial bench was sworn in on 11th March, 2003 and was comprised of a diverse judicial bench, which was a representation of most of the world’s regions. Later on the first chief prosecutor was elected by the Assembly of States Parties (Sadat, 2006). Each state party adopts laws that are to be implemented by the tribunal based under the Rome statute, and the laws are often referred to as the "implementing legislation”.
Problem statement
Despite the ground work which was sufficiently laid for the ICC, many nations still regard it as a failure. Critics and observers of the ICC have argued that it has entirely focused its attention on Africa to the extent of being regarded as a colonialist tool specifically biased towards Africans nations and leaders.(Deya, 2012)). This is highly echoed in that twenty one cases presented from eight countries have been in Africa. This research will be geared to proving that investigating and prosecuting the African countries is biased as compared to other veto countries that use their own tribunals.
Some of these arising issues in the International Criminal Courts could be attributed to the structure of power in global systems as considered by some analysts (Dugard, 2013). The lack of participation of some of the permanent and major members of the Security Council of the UN hinders the enhancement of laws which have been instituted by the court to be implemented. (Bosco, 2013). The exploratory nature of the research will reveal the strong and weak aspects of the ICC in relation to veto countries which lead to compromising between power and law. The study will seek to understand how powers of deferral and referral of ICC prosecutions given to the Security Council by the statute of Rome affect the legitimacy and credibility of the court significantly. Security Council being an independent body, raises the concern as to whether it will act impartially and fairly regarding the situations referred to the court, considering that it might have ties to single Veto-wielding Council member or affiliations with other nations politically (Sadat, 2011)
Research question
The study will seek to answer this key question;
1 Is the International Criminal Court (ICC) unjustly targeting African nations?
Methodology
The researcher will use secondary sources to gather information on the topic of study. The secondary sources will be largely internet sources. Where applicable, the researcher will seek permission from the managers of the respective websites to gain the required information. The study will embark on an exhaustive comparison between all the African cases as compared to the situations in the Veto countries that have not been presented to the ICC. Based on the information retrieved, the paper will offer conclusive findings on how the ICC is biased towards the African countries.
Search period
The study will concentrate on scholarly materials that are of recent publication which means that the academic material used will not be more than six years old. However, significant but old academic literature with credible information on the study topic will be considered for review.
Search Databases and key terms
The search for credible literature will be conducted on Google books and scholarly journals. During the search, the key words to be used are; International criminal court, global power systems, veto countries, ICC on African union.
Search strategy
The researcher expect to review over twenty scholarly materials ...