ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the activities and the role of the ICC in the Darfur crisis. It reviews the background to the prosecutions, explaining how and why the Security Council referred the matter to the Court, and the slow pace of activity by the Court since that time. The inability of the Court to move promptly has surely blunted its potential as a deterrent for future crimes. It is, in any event, always a difficult matter to establish whether judicial initiatives actually deter crime. Since the issuance of the arrest warrants in May 2007, the obstacle to effective prosecution is Sudanese refusal to comply with its obligation to cooperate with the Court, which is set out in the original Security Council. However, the Security Council itself has done nothing to reinforce the Court’s initiatives. When a case is referred to the Court by the Council, it is at the mercy of political considerations and therefore dependent upon the Security Council for the enforcement of its decisions.
