By Shawn Macomber • Lawfare Tyranny
Kenya recently settled its outstanding 2014 “contributions” to the International Criminal Court with a €26,110 ($28,542) payment, according to the Court’s Report of the Committee on Budget and Finance issued last week.
This might seem like a princely sum to the average Kenyan subsisting in a nation with a per capita GDP of less than $1500, but it is an atomic particle compared to how much the ICC has spent on its reportedly “very, very amateur” pursuit of Kenyan leaders:
Notification of 26 June 2014 for €1,369,900 ($1,522,091) and further notification of 10 October 2014 of the revised estimate of resources required of €782,900 ($870,295) for the purposes of funding prosecutorial activities related to offences against the administration of justice under article 70 of the Rome Statute and for witness relocation and assisted moves in the situation in Kenya.
Of course, even a money furnace like the ICC can revise costs downward amidst ignominious failure — while, naturally, deflecting blame and insisting an unwilling world play army on its behalf — but, considering the Court’s sorry record, it is exceedingly difficult to believe those funds wouldn’t have better served the Kenyan people via direct aid and/or civil society nurturing organizations.
A gaggle of starry-eyed world government apparatchiks bumbling in and out of volatile internecine conflicts, frequently making bad situations worse, then leaving has not exactly worked out. (Good luck, Israel/Palestine!)
Perhaps it is time to try a fresh approach?