International criminal justice as a tool for ending impunity in Syria

The Syrian case shows the difficulties in resorting to international criminal law when a conflict is ongoing. Some years ago I edited a volume with the title “Is there a Court for Gaza?” where we defined the Palestine situation as a “test bench” for international justice. Now the same question can be asked with regard to Syria: “Is there a Court for Syria?”. More broadly the question is what role is international criminal law, if any, playing in the conflict? It is clear in fact that the parties to the conflict do not feel in any way bound to respect international law and are keeping disregarding even the most basic rules and principles of IHL and human rights law. In this sense it would be easy to conclude that ICL is unable to exercise any form of deterrence and thus meaningless. However, I would argue that the main problem is not the law in itself, but the lack of implementation of it. My point is that the vision, the dream, that is behind the creation of an International criminal court and in general of the international criminal justice system is a noble one, and still a valid project today. It is the political component, what Bassiouni calls the real-politik, that suffocates the project and undermines its legitimacy.