Why Hasn’t Assad Been Charged With War Crimes?

[SunSeeker]

Given the allegations currently being leveled at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, readers might be wondering why Assad and his senior commanders have not been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court like leaders such as Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. After all, the court was specifically set up to “have the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern,” and last month’s chemical attacks certainly fit the bill. A number of NGOs and dozens of countries have called for such a prosecution.

Unfortunately, international law is once again protecting Assad’s violations of international law. Syria is not a state party to the ICC (neither, for what it’s worth, is the United States) and therefore its prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction over crimes committed there. For Assad to be charged by the ICC, he would have to be referred by the U.N. Security Council which, as with an authorization for military intervention, isn’t going to happen as long as Russia and China have seats. Marc Lynch discussed a few other possible avenues for Assad’s prosecution a few weeks ago, but for now, a prosecution seems extremely unlikely, even as the Syrian government commits exactly the sort of crimes the court was set up to deal with.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/09/05/assad_s_war_crimes_why_hasn_t_he_been_charged_with_war_crimes_by_the_international.html

[BlueStreak]

1. THIS is the key question. Because we can't try Assad, we're going to just kill a bunch of people

What kind of sense does that make? How does killing a bunch of Syrians punish Assad? He likes killing people.

The correct punishment is to take him to The Hague.

So the problem is the UN, as usual. Well, if the USA can unilaterally bomb a country that is not threatening us in any possible way, why can't we unilaterally change the rules of the UN? That is a serious question. We think we are badass enough to ignore the UN by attacking Syria? Well why aren't we badass enough to say it is time to make some changes to fix this dysfunctional Security Council.

Oh, that's just too hard, so let's just kill some people instead.

[Justina For Justice]

2. Why Hasn't Obama Been Charged with War Crimes?

Our illegal drone strikes in other sovereign countries are just as illegal as using chemical weapons. The U.S. is not in a moral position to "punish" Assad. The whole lot of these damn politicians belong in jail.

[Tx4obama]

3. Probably will be once the blood and hair samples tests are finished & the report has been finalized