166 REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP
only stepping in if national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate
or prosecute crimes falling under the mandate of the ICC. The ICC was
also tasked with defending the rights of groups that often have little
recourse to justice, such as women and children. The establishment of
this court was more than just a symbolic move and was a much - needed
step in the direction of universal, global, criminal justice.
The ICC aimed to make international standards of conduct more
specifi c, to provide an important mechanism for implementation of these
standards, and ensure that potential violators are brought to justice.
Because it can investigate and begin prosecutions at an early stage, it is
also expected to shorten the span of violence and hasten expedient reso-
lution of confl ict. Furthermore, it is hoped that it will have a positive
impact on national laws around the world, because ratifying nations will
want to ensure that crimes covered by the ICC can be tried within their
own borders. It is the wish of the international community that the ICC
will ensure that future Hitlers, Pinochets, Pol Pots, Mengistus, Amins,
Savimbis, and Mobutus will face a day of reckoning. In this context, it
is interesting to see how in 2008 the ICC charged the Sudanese Presi-
dent, Omar Hassan Al - Bashir, with genocide, given his contribution to
the bloodshed in his country ’ s Darfur region. He should have listened
to the words of Mahatma Gandhi: ‘ I object to violence because when it
appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is
permanent. ’Endnote
Material from this chapter has already appeared elsewhere, published as:- Kets de Vries , M.F.R. ( 2004 ). ‘ The spirit of despotism: Understanding the
tyrant within , ’ INSEAD Working Paper Series , 2004/17/Ent.