Last Wednesday, I attended Professor Ohlin’s talk about International Criminal Law. Professor Ohlin discussed the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan and whether this was a case that could be argued in court. While morally we may believe that any innocent life lost in a military strike puts that military’s government at fault, it is generally accepted that collateral damage is a part of war. As long as the amount of people killed is not proportional to the value of the military strike then said actions are lawful. However, it seems impossible to argue such a case because I’m not sure how one could go about measuring the value of a military strike in comparison to the loss of human lives. As Professor Ohlins pointed out, this is why such cases are rarely taken as lawyers prefer to take on cases where it’s clear that there was no value at all in the military attack.

This means that war criminals are rarely brought to justice. I was particularly struck by the manner in which South Africa protected the president of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, while there was a warrant out for his arrest. South Africa also faced no punishment for failing to bring Al-Bashir into custody. It was also unsettling to see how easy it is for big powers such as the U.S. to evade accountability due to the veto power in the U.N. Security Council as well as the fact that we are not part of the International Criminal Court. There need to be checks in place to ensure justice especially because the U.S. has so much power and maintains a global presence.