The ICC goes after North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

     Peter Walker, a journalist for The Guardian, in his article “North Korea human rights abuses resemble those of the Nazis, says UN inquiry” reports that UN’s commissioner has been gathering a lot of material over the past year about North Korea’s leadership committing “systematic and appalling human rights abuses against its own citizens on a scale unparalleled in the modern world, crimes against humanity with strong resemblances to those committed by the Nazis a United Nation inquiry has concluded.” UN commissioner on human rights personally addressed leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, to warn that he could face trial at the international criminal court (ICC) for his personal responsibility as the head of the state for letting such atrocities to happen. UN’s intentions are absolutely admirable, but the actual realization of such an act and possible consequences of this trial are a bit more complicated and unsettled. It is very uncertain who will or will not support ICC in bringing Kim Jong-un to trial, because ICC has no standing army that can intervene and capture Kim Jong-un, unless he willingly surrenders himself, which won’t happen in any near future.

     One of the first powerful protesters that ICC may face is China with its veto right of this trial. Even though, China may seem as not a “supporter” of North Korean regime, it shows absolutely opposite behavior and have “close links with North Korea and maintains a policy of sending back people found to have fled across the border, despite widespread evidence that they face mistreatment and detention on their return” (Walker). Max Fisher from The Washington Post explains China’s political stand in the region as a very straight forward “no war, no instability, no nukes.” That explains that as a hegemon in the region China wants everything around it to be stable and under control. China absolutely doesn’t want to loose its people again if another Korean war erupts because of the ICC trial.

     The other issue that the ICC may face is what happens next in case the trial ends up being successful and the North Korean leader as well as the regime will go down. The ICC doesn’t have any military power that can prevent civil violent upheavals and turmoil as well as provide safety for the people. Moreover, ICC has to be able to gradually reform the country and radically transform the authoritative and corrupt regime into liberal and democratic. In order to implement anything close to what I described above in North Korea, the ICC has to have other nations to support it and provide it with standing military, think tanks, money, and etc. The big question here is who would want to get involved in North Korea’s transformation and send its own troops and minds there. As we’ve already seen China not only won’t support, but also would actually try to prevent the ICC from doing anything. South Korea doesn’t want to do anything with N Korea, zero relations. The US has no national interest in N Korea and has much more important issues to concentrate on. That means that there is actually no regional or world hegemon that is powerful and fully willing to get involved and support the ICC. The only countries that might be interested in such huge commitment might be like-minded members of the ICC that are small European countries that promote humanitarian and democratic values.

     All of this is very complicated and before the ICC decides to take Kim Jong-un on a trial, it has to create a really strong plan of action in case the trial is successful and make sure that it has enough support to really make a difference in people’s life, instead of allowing another vicious leader just take Kim’s place and continue the same atrocious regime.