Editorial

Abstract

There is no doubt that unfolding international affairs from Libya to Syria, from Afghanistan to Nigeria, are an ongoing source of concern, sympathy and mourning for the fate of victims. Such troubled times also raise complex legal and political issues that need, however, to be addressed conscientiously and soberly by scholarly studies in the area of international criminal law and on administration of justice both at the national and international level. For example, the situation in Libya requires a thorough and wide-ranging discussion on national accountability mechanisms and their relationship with the complementarity principle embedded in the ICC Statute. Events in Syria, on the other hand, raises once again the sceptre of selectivity and double standards relating to UN Security Council referrals to the ICC, while the delays and ambiguity in the situation in the Darfur cases are far from satisfactory. Several arrest warrants in various proceedings before the ICC are still pending, and the lack of any decision by the Prosecutor on, for instance, the Palestinian request under Article 12(b) of the Statute, is perplexing.