"It would have been impossible not to notice that the international football association, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has recently been at the centre of a very public international scandal. Less obvious, but considerably more troubling, is the fact that the International Criminal Court has been at the heart of a similar international scandal. At the heart of both have been allegations of corrupt vote-trading and bribery.
The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 by the Rome Statute as a court of last resort claiming to pursue the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes without fear of favour. By any measure, however, the International Criminal Court has shown itself to be simply unfit for purpose...
The ICC has consumed more than a billion euros in its 13-year existence and has only secured two deeply questionable convictions. The ICC's claims to international jurisdiction and judicial independence are institutionally flawed and the court's reputation has been irretrievably damaged by its selectivity, racism, blatant double standards, hypocrisy, corruption and serious judicial irregularities...
At the heart of the ICC's inadequacy as a court have been incompetent judges. The Rome Statute provides that 'judges shall be chosen from among persons of high moral character, impartiality and integrity who possess the qualifications required in their respective States for appointment to the highest judicial offices.' The reality is very different. Most of the people appointed as ICC judges have simply not been up to the job. This is not surprising given that its judges – some of whom have never been lawyers, let alone judges – are the result of corrupt vote-trading among member states within the Assembly of State Parties, the Court's oversight body, consisting of one representative from each State Party. Far from securing the best legal minds in the world vote-trading produces mediocrity. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines 'corrupt' as 'destroyed in purity, debased; vitiated by errors or alterations.' The ICC is corrupt...
The ICC is now into its second decade of bribes, bungs and corruption. In 2014, American journalist Dave Zirin said that greed, corruption, nonfeasance and malfeasance are endemic to FIFA leadership, and that FIFA should be abolished for the good of the game. Corruption, nonfeasance and malfeasance are similarly endemic to the International Criminal Court. It too should be abolished..."