CAIRO: A panel of renowned scholars and politicians gathered at the Sawy Culture Wheel Jan. 31 to discuss “justice and peace through the International Criminal Court.
Lead by the chairperson of the Administrative Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, the meeting sought to provide scope for discussion on both the progress and the aims of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It also gave encouragement for Egypt’s entry into the community of the ICC.
Held in tandem with the Goethe-Institute, two prominent German legal luminaries conveyed their conviction with regards to the success of the ICC.
Professor Claus Kress of the University of Cologne Germany was highly optimistic about the future of the ICC, saying, “There are those that think that this is just a noble idea of academics, and that high-profile trials such as Nuremberg and Tokyo were individual cases. But if you look back to just 1998 you can find that 120 states voted against the will of the most powerful nation.
Kress is referring to the establishment of the ICC, which needed the ratification of 60 votes to achieve its status as a permanent international criminal court. Despite, the US’s voting against the establishment of a court, along with six other nations, 120 countries gave their ratifications.
However, much of the evening was focused upon the double standards that “certain members of the Security Council have displayed during its history.
While the German members of the panel preferred to tread tentatively around the actions of the US in defying the Council, of which it was a member, the Egyptian members were heavily condemnatory.
Chairman Abdulro’ouf El-Ridi poetically declared, “The Bush administration is like a sunset fading away.
The refusal of the US to join the ICC is cited by Egyptian politicians as a primary reason for their holding back from participation in the court.
“In Yesterday’s meeting there was a tendency to formulate some preconditions before Egypt becomes a member state of the ICC, said Judge Kaul. “The crime of aggression must be solved; there must be a proper definition of terrorist crimes. As long as the Security Council is dominated by big powers and double standards Egypt cannot become a member. As long as Israel is not a member or being investigated for crimes, why should Egypt become a member.
Judge Kaul also touched on and pre-empted Washington’s pretext for disapproving the establishment of the court. “Washington sees this court as a threat to the sovereignty of states. But the established international criminal court for genocide is based on the voluntary consent of states, he said.
However, not all Egyptians are against Egypt’s joining the ICC. Speaker Abdullah Asha’l, former legal affairs assistant to the foreign minister, supports Egypt’s full participation, although he stressed that this cannot happen until there is peace in Palestine and the Arab region as a whole.
Chairman El-Ridy raised a slight chuckle from the audience when he summarized the somewhat non-committal stance of Doctor Salah Amr, law professor at Cairo University, also present at the gathering, saying that he “does not oppose Egypt’s participation.
Yet Amr was invariably positive, speaking about the changes in the international community, and mentioning the case of an Israeli military official who was held on board a jet in 2005 in a British airport lest he be arrested and tried for human rights abuses.
This was another of what appears to be a series of steps towards working with Egypt to ease her integration into the ICC. However, it is clear that there are still many with strong reservations and principles, to which, according to Kress, Egypt “is a hostage.
