Legal experts and prosecutorial officials have suggested applying for Taiwan to come under the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction as a means for the nation to build up a “hidden defense shield” as a deterrence against military aggression and potential war crimes by Chinese leaders.
The suggestion came during the main conclusion at a seminar in Taipei on Friday, discussing the “ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President [Vladimir] Putin on war crimes relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, relating to the scope of its application and jurisdiction.”
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office hosted the seminar, co-organized by the Taiwan Law Society, jurisprudence study groups and defense specialists from think tanks, to deliberate on ICC issues within the context of Taiwan needing to constantly prepare for war, as it faces a military threat and other challenges from China.
Photo: Reuters
“If military hostility breaks out around Taiwan ... then we must strive to gain support from [the] international community, and to call for sanctions against those who launch the war,” Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) said.
“Though some people would question [our] joining the ICC, doubting the effectiveness of the court’s decisions, we can see that the ICC has applied its Rome Statute to issue an arrest warrant for Putin, resulsting in much pressure on him by charging him with war crimes,” he said.
“Taiwanese citizens must prepare for the worst, while making the best preparations in the face of military hostility,” he said.
“We could discuss Taiwan accepting the ICC’s exercise of its jurisdiction, and to have ‘international criminal law’ become our national law. It can be the way for Taiwan to join international society, for application of international law, to build up a ‘hidden defense shield’ for our nation,” he added.
National Taiwan University College of Law professor Lin Yu-hsiung (林鈺雄) pointed to Article 12, Item 3 of the Rome Statute, saying that Taiwan could make a declaration to accept the exercise of jurisdiction by the ICC, with respect to the crimes specified in Article 5, for the crimes of genocide and aggression, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“Taiwan can learn from Germany, to adapt international law into domestic law ... This way, [we] can ensure our nation has the right to pursue prosecution of the crimes specified in the Rome Statute,” Lin said.
Academia Sinica’s Institutum Iurisprudentiae’s Liao Fu-te (廖福特) suggested following Article 12, with Taiwan making a declaration to lodge with the Registrar of the ICC for acceptance of ICC jurisdiction.
National Tsing Hua University law professor Huang Chu-cheng (黃居正) recommended that Taiwan join as a state signatory of the ICC, and for the domestic legal framework to link with international systems, thereby deterring external military hostile action against Taiwan.
National Cheng Kung University associate professor of law Chen Yi-kai (陳怡凱) said that ICC arrest warrants have practical applications.
As soon as ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan issued the arrest warrant, Putin only appeared in videoconference calls to engage in meetings, Chen said.
“Although Putin claimed that the ICC warrant has no meaning and Russia in turn issued its own arrest warrants against the ICC judge and prosecutor involved, in the common understanding of independent court judges around the world, the ICC action has rendered Putin an international criminal wanted for war crimes,” he said.
National Chengchi University associate professor Kevin Chang (張佳康) said that apart from heads of state, the ICC also has jurisdiction over military leaders and officers conducting war under chains of command, as ICC prosecutors have compiled more than 80,000 cases of alleged atrocities in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS