Is the ICC corrupted by China?

"...The International Criminal Court (ICC) rejected to open an investigation into the mounting allegations of genocide against the Uighur Muslims in China, meaning the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a free rein to continue what it deems "re-education" camps – for now.

Beijing, like the United States, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which founded the ICC in 2002. The court was intended to be the world's first permanent international criminal legal structure to endorse the rule of law, ensure human rights protection, and punish the most abhorrent international crimes.

Yet activists had carefully been compiling evidence about acts of genocide, including classified Chinese government cables detailing a sweeping surveillance system and extrajudicial detention – much to Beijing's chagrin...

The case put forth was based on operations against the Uighurs residing in Tajikistan and Cambodia, both of which are ICC members. Furthermore, a collective of more than 60 parliamentarians from more than a dozen countries also added their gravitas to the appeal, sending a letter to prosecutor Fatou Bensouda requesting that the international legal body 'play its part in ensuring that the perpetrators of the most egregious human rights abuses are held accountable and prevented from acting with impunity.'

However, the office of ICC prosecutor Bensouda stated last week the 'precondition for the exercise of the court's territorial jurisdiction did not appear to be met with respect to the majority of the crimes alleged' since they appear 'to have been committed solely by nationals of China within the territory of China, a State which is not a party to the Statute.'

But for some analysts, the argument doesn't hold weight – raising questions over a broader influence of China in the international community and throughout the United Nations, of which The Hague, Netherlands, is affiliated with but functions independently.

'It is truly amazing and revealing that the Chief Prosecutor so quickly determined that the ICC lacked jurisdiction to investigate the alleged genocide being perpetrated against the Uighurs by the Chinese government,' said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israel-based attorney who has long specialized in suing terrorist regimes and state sponsors who orchestrate human rights abuses on behalf of victims. 'Fatou Bensouda's announcement that since China is not a state member, she is powerless to proceed against Beijing must be contrasted with her ruthless pursuit of war crime allegations against Israel and the United States. Like China, neither Israel nor the U.S is a signatory to the Rome Treaty.'.."