So the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor has been suspended. Naturally, the usual chorus of sanctimonious voices is calling for “reform.” But let us be clear: this is not a crisis of procedure.
It is a crisis of credibility. The ICC, that grand experiment in global justice, has long been a theatre of the absurd. It prosecutes African warlords with zeal while turning a blind eye to the far greater crimes of Western powers.
The suspension of its chief prosecutor—amid allegations of misconduct—is merely the latest symptom of a deeper rot. The UK, ever eager to play the moral arbiter, now demands a “full reform.” But reform implies that the institution was once functional.
It was not. The ICC was born from the hubris of the post-Cold War era, a time when the West believed it could impose its legal norms on the world. Now, as the globe fractures into competing spheres of influence, the court is left exposed, a relic of a bygone liberal order.
The suspension is a convenient distraction from the fact that the ICC has never been a neutral arbiter. It is a political weapon, wielded by the powerful against the weak. If the UK truly desires reform, it should start by admitting that the court’s very premise is flawed.
Until then, the ICC will remain what it has always been: a stage for the performance of justice, not its delivery.
