(Via Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner) The Telegraph (UK) has a swell piece on how the ICC judges are being selected:
Delegates from the countries that are supporting and funding the new International Criminal Court were greeted on Tuesday by a pile of hand-outs about each country's selected candidate. "Vote for Mr Raymond C Sock, the Gambia's candidate, expert on criminal justice, human rights and humanitarian law," urged one, more in hope than expectation.Ah, "non-governmental organizations". That'll strike fear into anyone. And as Stuttaford comments, "Who elected them?"
...
Following pressure from the non-governmental organisations that have been heavily involved in setting up the new court, voting rules had also made it impossible for powerful Western nations to elect judges in their own image. Thus, countries had to vote for at least three of the 10 African candidates, two of the six candidates from Asia, two of the seven from Eastern Europe, three of the eight who came from Latin America or the Caribbean and just three of the 12 from a weighty group that included western Europe and Canada.
To make the ballot paper even more complicated, states had to vote for at least nine (but no more than 13) of the 22 candidates whose main expertise was in criminal law and at least five (but no more than nine) of the 21 candidates with a background in international law.
Little wonder, then, that two of the 85 countries got their sums wrong and had their papers declared invalid when the results came out on Tuesday afternoon.
No matter how much paint you put on it, it's still an outhouse.
