On Tuesday, Nobel Peace Prize winner Navi Pillay urged the United States to return to its traditional role as a human rights advocate and liberator for the rest of the world in the wake of a US campaign to weaken the International Criminal Court.
The 85-year-old is currently working as a judge at the United Nations’ highest legal body stated, “My message is: You have to get back to playing your serious role as a leader, playing a liberatory role for the rest of the world.”
The United States announced sweeping sanctions aimed at her former employer, hours after Pillay was announced as the winner of the Peace Prize on Friday.
She asserted that the timing of the sanctions is an unparalleled attack on an institution founded by an international treaty after the Nobel Prize win.
In this regard, Pillay said, “I think it’s very unfortunate. However, the plans of targeting international criminal justice through the ICC were brewing all the time.”
“That’s why the first thing I did when I returned from Nuremberg to The Hague is to go to the staff of the ICC to show solidarity for their work in promoting international criminal justice and to protect those who’ve already been sanctioned.”
According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he called the ICC a “rogue court” that will never be allowed to bring charges against Americans.
The new sanctions were deferred for a six-month period alongside additional transaction exclusions for telecoms, software, payments of pensions and detainees’ account transactions.
Nonetheless, the US has been long hostile to the court and specifically the ICC statute that says it has universal jurisdiction not only over nationals of member states but also over other individuals accused of committing international crimes within member states’ territories.
