International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, accusing them of persecuting women

3 comments

1. ICC should get on the narcos for that too. Just because they blow up less stuff doesn’t make them any lesser terrorists

2. Maybe the west should try and invade Afghanistan again so the Taliban can gain more territory and upgrade even more of their weapons? At least all the bored Tajik and Hazara bacha baz in Europe and America will have something to look forward to if they try it again.

3. There’s a case to be made that Afghanistan was never legally part of the ICC.

   The government that signed the treaty (2003) was one composed of officials appointed by the US occupation, i.e. the government that signed the treaty was merely the civilian army of the US Military occupation. A civilian government was not elected until 2004.

   The ICC would have to consider that government the legal government of Afghanistan at the time for Afghanistan to be a part of the ICC.

   The question becomes, are the Taliban the legal government of Afghanistan an was the occupation government of Afghanistan the legal government? This has multiple answers with branching implications.

   The simplist is to say they both were legal and thus ICC has jurisdiction until revoked by the Taliban.

   The Taliban could argue that the 2001 invasion and the 2003 government were illegal and that the 2003 government had no right to sign away elements of soverignty that they did. The Taliban will claim that they were always the legal government and as such we should see all international treaties signed by the Republic as invalid, and to have always been invalid. If the Taliban argument is accepted then, the ICC had no jurisdiction to investigate and charge Taliban officials in a country in which the ICC had been given jurisdiction illegally.

   The ICC will likely argue that the 1st Emirate (Taliban 1 1996-2001) was never the legal government of Afghanistan and thus the invasion and occupation were legal and thus the 2003 signing of the treaty was legal and valid. They would likely also argue that the 2nd Emirate ( Taliban 2 2021 – present) is also an illegal government that has no right to revoke treaties.

   I see one major problem for the ICC regarding the second argument, that it would go against the 2013 ruling that the overthrown Freedom and Justice Party was not the legal representative of Egypt despite winning the 2012 election and being overthrown by a military coup in 2013. Since the ICC saw the 2013 Egyptian coup as legal and thus removing the right to represent Egypt from the deposed ruling party, it would be very strange for them to not follow the same logic in Afghanistan. As a result they would likely have to consider the 1st Emirate and 2nd Emirate legal, because they were military overthrows of a sitting government, and they could also consider the Republic legal too. In which case they would need to follow the the first answer.

   I do wonder whether the Taliban will challenge this or whether they will just ignore a court that has absolutely 0 ability to enforce these arrest warrants.

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