Last week the International Criminal Court indicted Sudanese president Omar Bashir for war crimes committed in Darfur, despite calls for restraint because of ongoing peace negotiations. The indictment was the first ever warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, or the ICC, against a sitting head of state.

At first glance, this may look like a watershed moment in transnational justice and maybe even an unprecedented event that will help end the Darfur genocide in which 300,000 have been killed. Wait a second, genocide? Shouldn’t the court be prosecuting Bashir for genocide, rather than war crimes? Genocide, after all, is a much worse charge than war crimes.

Oh. That’s right. The ICC didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute Bashir for genocide. Well, I guess if we can lock that guy up the world will be a better place, no matter what crime he is charged with.

You said lock him up? Good luck. The Sudanese Constitution gives the Sudanese president immunity from any and all criminal prosecution.

Well, international law overrules some silly pathetic little Sudanese Constitution, right? No, it doesn’t. Sudan has not ratified the “Rome Statute,” meaning the ICC has no jurisdiction in Sudan (for that matter, the US has not ratified the statute either).

Well, come on guys, at least the indictment sends a message. There’s no harm in indicting a murderer.

Wrong again. Following the indictment, the Sudanese government expelled international relief agencies, putting more Darfur refugees in danger, not to mention that peace talks have been jeopardized and retaliatory raids against Darfur civilians are inevitable. And what if Bashir is never arrested? What kind of precedent would that then set?

I know Amnesty International is a popular and active group at the high school. (If you want proof, come to the Amnesty coffeehouses.) Amnesty International has long pressed for an international response to the Darfur genocide, and our local group at the high school has also tried to bring attention to the issue. However, the Amnesty International website has recently come out in strong support of the ICC’s indictment. I’d like to hear from Amnesty members on what they think of this.

I love international institutions, I really do. But under current international law they’re too weak to do just about anything other than peacekeeping – and sometimes they can’t even do that right. If the international community really wanted to end the Darfur genocide, they would set up a no-fly zone over Darfur to end Bashir’s air attacks, enforced by a multi-national air force. We did that with southern Iraq in the ’90s after the first Gulf War, and something similar was done in the Balkans. This type of policy would be much more effective than an indictment.

So why hasn’t this happened? Could it possibly be because most of the world doesn’t actually care about the genocide? Have they decided, just like with nearly every other genocide, to sit back and do nothing?