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The two faces of impunity: the EU and International Criminal Court

05/12/2007 By Vidal Martín

Since its creation in 1998, the European Union has offered numerous gestures of support to the International Criminal Court, a fact which has been clearly manifested at the institutional level.

The EU has also been criticised by a number of states over the same period, either because of the form its support has taken, because there is not enough of it, or finally, because it is seen as trying to “appropriate” the ICC for itself.

With greater or lesser steadfastness, the EU has demonstrated an unconditional attitude of support to the first permanent international court since the very beginning, making use of a range of different instruments to effectuate this backing.

On the political level, a number of agreements have been made between both institutions, while special attention has been paid to updating common positions within the EU at the same time. Indeed the EU backing of the ICC is open and clear, but not quite as complete as it could be.

Time has come for the EU to implement at home what it has been preaching outside.


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Keywords

Czech Republic EU EU Foreign Policy Europe European Union Human rights International Criminal Court International Criminal Justice Serbia United States

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Bio author: Vidal Martín

Vidal Martín runs the "International Criminal Justice and Post-Conflict project" at FRIDE, which is related to Human Rights, Transitional and Universal Justice, as well as the complementarity between national and international courts. He previously worked at the Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR), National University of Ireland (Galway).