13 december 2014, justice delayed but not denied

I spent a large part of the intellectual capital channelled through youthful angst and indignation about the world's patent unfairness and all other things wrong considering macro-level human rights, both legally, with a particular interest in the icty yugoslavian tribunal at the hague (probably the most startling and successful international law enforcement of all time) and at the un, where I spent a memorable summer ingesting the universal declaration. The worst abuses are still with us, indeed "we" are guilty of them ourselves, and not just in the past. From the successful model of justice being dispensed to the worst war criminals of the yugolsav conflict came the broader international criminal court, born in the teeth of opposition from america, russia, china and others in the very summer I spent in geneva. I have rarely felt as proud to be british as the moment their swing vote broke from the "permanent 5" pack and the rome statute was adopted. Twelve years on, the court, which also sits in the hague, is approaching maturity, but has hardly covered itself in glory, having cost over a billion dollars and convicted just 2 people. However, that is just journalistic bombast, as justice costs money and the court is a driver at the centre of an intricate process of international law that militates every day against the worst criminals in positions of power acting with impunity. It stiffens the resolve of national courts, politicians and organisations and covers parts of the world which are inaccessible, corrupt and where state abuse is public and ingrained - but no longer as invisible and untouchable as it once was. That it is so focused, especially on africa, may yet be its undoing. The hague and what it stands though is an important pillar of our future world we would all be poorer and less safe without.