Effectiveness of International Criminal Court

Introduction

International law involves rules and regulations which are universally applicable. These rules and regulations focus on human rights and other inhuman activities. The legal system varies from one country to another (Kindred et al., 2006).

An activity may be considered as an offense in one country, but at the same time, that activity may be considered as a regular thing in another country. In the past, the Saudi Arabian government deterred women from driving. Women were not allowed to drive in the country until recently, when the government saw that it was against human rights.

However, these laws are always enforced by international organizations. An individual county cannot prosecute another country for having committed a criminal offense. Therefore, the international community saw the need to form international organizations such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Law Commission (ILC).

This dissertation focuses on the effectiveness of these international organizations in the enforcement of international law. This proposal focuses on public international law. Many treaties and laws of seas govern different countries. Over the years, these have been cases of infringement of the different treaties.

Problem statement

In contemporary society, there are many instances of infringement of human rights in different counties. These facts are evident from the media reports.

Research aims and objectives

• To identify the extent to which international organizations have done concerning international.
• To identify whether these organizations are useful in all member countries.
• To find what needs to be done to boost the importance of these organizations as far as their mandates are concerned.

Literature Review

According to Peter Gill, the effectiveness of a law is determined by its enforcement. People are supposed to comply with the set of rules and regulations. In other words, internationally recognized rules and regulations, such as those focusing on human rights, should be put into practice by everyone.

Today, many countries have implemented laws and regulations on the protection of human rights. Such laws are implemented by forming regional and country-based organizations that foresee the implementation of the policy. This is always one of the best steps in ensuring that laws are protected.

Additionally, laws are enforced by different authorities, such as the court (Gill, 2018). The effectiveness of the court is significantly proportional to the implementation of the policy in question. Therefore, enforcement of the law plays an important role.

The United Nations is one of the well-renowned international organizations which enforce international law. It does so through different organs such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). The UNCITRAL ensures that the member states adhere to the set rules and guidelines in regards to international trade (Hammond, 2018).

Member states are obliged to put the rules into practice when engaging in international trade. United Nations has adopted different policies to ensure that the law is protected accordingly.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most affected areas of concern. Canada is one of the United Nations Member states. Canada has struggled in the implementation of the rights of a child (Covell et al., 2018).

Despite the United Nation’s focus on the right of children, there are some countries where children’s’ rights are being abused. The United Nations defines a child as anyone below the age of eighteen. The age group is composed of those people who are still attending schools at different levels.

However, there are international organizations that work on human rights, including that of children. Ideally, someone or some people should act accordingly for this problem to be eradicated. For every country to embrace strict adherence to the rights of children, international organizations should devise an effective strategy to bring to justice those who go against such rules.

According to Green, the war of armed conflict has increased over the years. Many countries have experienced and different instances of armed war. Specifically, terrorism activities have rapidly increased in the world over the years. Different terrorist groups are organized and run by individuals and groups, respectively. The media have reported different instances of terror attacks in various countries.

In most cases, terrorists kill innocent people for unknown reasons. However, the right to life is one of the fundamental international rights. The United Nations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are concerned with ensuring that human right is protected at all cost.

The constitutional Law of Canada prescribes different rules and regulations regarding international law. Apart from Canada, other countries also have constitutions that prescribe what is expected from the citizens as far as international law is concerned.

The constitution is the manual where all laws are recorded and how they are supposed to be executed (Peter, 2017). The constitution also has a clear focus on how the laws are supposed to be enforced.

ince all nations practice international laws, they can only be enforced by international organizations.  International Criminal Court is an international organization that is mandated to enforce international law. It is a body corporate, and thus, it should not interfere with other people’s rights.

Research Methodology

The research will mostly concentrate on the International Criminal Court (ICC). This court has handled different cases resulting from infringement of human rights and breakage of treaties. However, the court has not settled the cases effectively. The plaintiff, the general public, has not gotten enough satisfaction from the court.

The effectiveness of this organization will be measured by identifying the cases which it has handled. If the court has dealt with cases that have not resulted in an amicable solution, it would be considered ineffective. The research will also determine the time frame involved in the determination of cases. Long processes would show that the court is ineffective.

For this research to meet its objectives, it should use strategic methods. Research methodology entails how the research should be done towards the achievement of the research objectives. In this case, the research intends to identify the effectiveness of the international criminal court in the enforcement of international law.

The research will look at the circumstances where international law has not been adhered to, but the international criminal court has not made a meaningful step. By meaningful step, I mean getting the solution to control these activities. It has been in the news headlines that people are being killed in different parts of the world. For example, the continuous war in Afghanistan has never been solved by the International Criminal Court.

Also, there is a difficulty in prosecuting the heads of states whenever they are in power. The ICC operates under some strict rules which do not allow them to arrest the heads of state in his country when he is in power.

Notably, the ICC wanted to arrest the president of South Sudan for the inhuman activities which had been caused by his regime. The court could not arrest him while he was in power. This is one of the biggest challenges faced by international organizations as far as enforcement of international law is concerned (Simpson, 2018).

Moreover, member states can quickly exit from the membership of international organizations when they deem possible. Many countries in Africa, such as Kenya, withdrew her membership from the International Criminal Court. This was after the court had dealt with a case on the country’s post-election violence of 2007 (Helfer and Showalter, 2017).

Furthermore, there have been many instances of criminal activities, but international organizations seem to be silent about it. Northern Nigeria has been experiencing chaos from Boko Haram militants who abduct children from schools for no valid reason.

Recently, there was a severe ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, where a group of people was forced out of the county. Due to this eviction, many people were killed as well as displaced. Additionally, there have been religious wars in different countries, such as Sir Lanka. Recently, shooters attached people in different places of worship in Sir Lanka, killing many innocent people.

Therefore, the research intends to take a viewpoint of the effectiveness of international organizations in the enforcement of international law concerning all the stated examples of instances of the infringement of human rights in different countries. The research opinion is that there is inefficiency in the effectiveness of international organizations in terms of the research topic.

Data Collection and Analysis

This research will use surveying to collect data on the topic of discussion. There will be two types of data to be collected in this research that is, qualitative and quantitative. For the quantitative data, the research team will concentrate on the figures of those who have been killed and those who have been displaced due to conflicts and other activities which age against international law.

Additionally, the data collection team will collect numerical data on some of the successful cases that have been handled by international organizations. For qualitative data, the research team will engage the general public to get their views on the effectiveness of these international organizations.

The people will have to fill in a questionnaire about the effectiveness of the organizations in question. After that, an analysis will be done through percentages to determine the strength between those who think that the international organizations are ineffective and those who think that it is effective. Therefore, a comparison will be made to determine the say of the majority.

Results

Many people would disagree with the fact that international organizations are doing their work correctly. This is because there have been many instances of criminal activities in some countries. For example, based on the sample of the total population reached, more than 50% of the respondents are likely to suggest that the international organizations are not sufficient.

Discussion

This research aims at finding what people perceive to be associated with the effectiveness of international organizations in regards to enforcement of international law and the actual statistics which show the actual capabilities of the organizations.

The International Criminal Court operates under specific rules and treaties; therefore, it cannot go against those provisions. Notably, an international organization cannot go against a treaty that has been signed by a particular country.

For example, the ICC cannot prosecute the heads of state of those counties who withdrew from membership. In an instance of a criminal offense in those countries, little or no action can be taken by the ICC. Another example is Brexit, which is being talked about by many people. Ideally, this exit will cause some problems which may infringe on the rights of other people.

Recommendation and Conclusion

The first recommendation is that international organizations should be given authority over country-based legal institutions. They should be the supreme body concerning the enforcement of international law.

In this regard, these organizations should be given the opportunity and mandate to prosecute those heads of state who engage in criminal activities, whether they are in power or not. They should also be allowed to do a thorough investigation in any county without restriction and limitations regarding the number of witnesses in a case.

In conclusion, this research will present its findings to determine whether international organizations are useful in the enforcement of international law or not. It will majorly consider instances where human rights have been infringed, but the international organizations have taken no successful action. Therefore, the data collected will be used to conclude the topic of study.