It’s International Justice Day – twelve years to this date since the Rome Statute established the International Criminal Court (ICC).

So far progress in the war crimes trials at the ICC has been slow. And the big powers like the United States, Russia and China are still missing off the list of countries that have ratified its statute. Nevertheless, William Pace, convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), still thinks there’s plenty of reason to celebrate the founding of the first permanent court in history that can bring individuals to justice for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“The very first cases are excruciatingly slow because all of the procedures are being established, every single issue is appealed by the prosecutor or by the defence.” Mr Pace says the slow progress of the first ICC justice is disappointing, but it was always to be expected. And governments and judges are committed to picking up the pace. After all on a historical scale, the ICC has only just opened for business.

Release
The first person to be brought before the court under an ICC warrant was Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. It’s more than four years since he was flown to The Hague to be put on trial for the war crimes of enlisting and using children in a brutal conflict in Ituri. But on Thursday the court ordered his conditional release - already for the second time. Judges say Lubanga can no longer be given a fair hearing, following a row with the prosecutors over the way they have obtained evidence and disclosure of information to the defense.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo appealed Lubanga's release late Friday, a move supported by the representatives of the victims in the trial.

At the moment, the release appears to be no more than a threat, to try to push prosecutors into following the court’s instructions. But even if Lubanga does end up walking free, Mr Pace isn’t entirely disheartened. “It will be a terrible development,” he says, “but it will demonstrate the independence of the court and the commitment of the Rome Statute to fair trials.”

Multi-pronged war
The Rome Statute has been ratified by 111 countries so far, and around 30 countries are moving towards ratification. But can it really be taken seriously as long as it hasn’t been fully endorsed by countries like Russia, China, India and the US? The strong-arm countries have only been prepared to come in if they can control the treaty rather than abide by it, insisting on special terms and exemptions. But as far as the ICC is concerned, every country has to be equal before the law and there won’t be any exceptions.

“It’s already functioning effectively,” says Mr Pace, “and it functioned effectively in spite of a major, multi-pronged war by the United States government – the Bush administration – to kill the treaty and the organisation in its cradle.” Anyway, he says, those days are over. Even in George W. Bush’s last two years in office, the US was changing its tune on the ICC, and under President Barack Obama the more constructive policy is official. Even so, there is no prospect of US ratification over the next decade, and it will take years for the major powers to become fully-fledged members.

Aggression
The Rome Statute’s review conference in Kampala, Uganda, recently took another historic step, adopting an amendment that should eventually add the crime of aggression to the list of crimes that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction. It’s a controversial move for countries that would prefer to decide for themselves when it’s right for them to go to war. And they’ve managed to riddle the amendment with holes by carving out exemptions. Nevertheless, Mr Pace says the very definition of the crime of aggression in a major treaty is highly significant. And according to United Kingdom NGOs, he says, it would have been enough to stop the UK government claiming the 2003 invasion of Iraq was legal.

Cooperation is undoubtedly the biggest challenge facing international justice, says Mr Pace. It will be a long time before the various missing superpowers and dictatorships agree to take the risk and knuckle under. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic. Twelve years on, he says, the Rome Statute represents “tremendous and historic progress in the international legal order relative to international justice, to the goal of ending impunity for the worst crimes.”