Credit: PromiseInstUCLAtwitter.com /   International Criminal Court President Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji speaks at UCLA School of Law Jan. 29, 2019.

DIPLOMATIC TIMES  STAFF

International Criminal Court President Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji drove home a hard-hitting message on accountability for those who commit war crimes in a recent speech at the University of California at Los Angeles:

 “Justice gets done when the focus is on accountability. Accountability does not mean conviction in every case. It means showing that no one is above the law.”  

International Criminal Court President    Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji

ICC Judge Eboe-Osuji also addressed threats to The Hague-based war tribunal made by U.S. national security adviser John Bolton.   The ICC president was speaking at an  event organized by the Promise Institute for Human Rights, a subset of the UCLA School of Law.  Bolton threatened sanctions against the ICC if it pursued war crimes charges against Americans allegedly committed during the Afghanistan war. Bolton further called the ICC illegitimate.   Eboe-Osuji said the ICC must act according to the principle of complementarity, or the idea that the court only takes action when a state’s government does not address injustice, as reported by the UCLA Daily Bruin.      “(The ICC only steps in) when the state is unable to do justice or when the state that is able to justice … is unwilling to do so. Primary jurisdiction belongs to the states and … the ICC jurisdiction is secondary,” Eboe-Osuji said. “When states do not act to injustice is the only time when the ICC steps in.”

Eboe-Osuji added he believes the U.S. is reluctant to participate in the investigations of the court in general because it does not want to fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC, according to the  Daily Bruin.