Crime and Punishment at the ICC

I am NOT a proponent of the death penalty. I would never personally want to be held responsible for cutting short the life of another being regardless of whether I believe they have a chance at redemption or reform, or not. HOWEVER, when I see a ten year trial for the prosecution of someone responsible for the orchestration of the deaths of nearly one million people by the most brutal and primitive means one could fathom, I am forced to ponder the philosophical quandary of punishment suitable to the crime.

No developed country other than the US, utilizes the death penalty. And in the US, what is the benchmark for the death penalty? Usually the brutal nature preceding the end of the crime (i.e. murder), weighs most on whether someone receives life in prison or the death penalty. So if there are two murderers, and one momentarily goes ballistic and murders another human and the other premeditates and follows through with the rape, torture and murder of another human, via the sentencing, supreme law acknowledges that these crimes are not equal. Murderer one would most likely not receive the death penalty where as murderer two would probably have no other choice. The punishment is supposedly tailored to fit the brutality of the crime.

Not so for the International Criminal Court. One of the reasons that the ICC cannot sentence people to death (other than the obvious fact that it is an archaic and undesirable act) is that those prosecuted by the ICC are citizens of varying countries with varying rules of engagement. So how, then, can the ICC (any court really, but above all the ICC) punish according to the crime?

Theoneste Bogosora is responsible for the death of nearly one million people. He is charged with the most weighty crime known to man: Genocide by means of gang rape, torture, mutilation, decapitation, dismemberment, impailment, etc. etc. How can you punish for such an unimaginable crime? Should the ICC be governed by the "rules of the jungle," "eye for an eye": everything planned and executed by Bogosora would be done to him until he gave in to death? However, those responsible for justice can never bow to the level of the criminal. No judge, jury, lawyer, even victim would be willing to see such monstrous actions taken against another human: not even the man responsible for the pain and disappearance of their family, friends, children, loved ones.

There will never be a surprise verdict at the ICC. All criminals, from those responsible for minor indiscretions against the Geneva conventions, to the man responsible for the second largest genocide of the 20th Century, can only be held in a cell. Something about that feels very wrong. Not that I would want to see anyone tortured, regardless of their crime. But I want them reminded, everyday, of the pain and horror they wrongly caused innocent people for no purpose other than their disposal.