The International Criminal Court - an opportunity for the Asia Pacific

On 18 October 2011, a Sydney Morning Herald article reported that the Greens had, the previous day, called upon the Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, to push for members of the Sri Lankan Government to be referred by the United Nations Security Council for investigation by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), ‘despite the fact that Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the (sic) court’. While, of course, the issue of possible war crimes committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka towards the end of the civil war in that country in 2009 is in itself a very important issue, this report also highlighted the fact that yet another Asian country was not a State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute).