ICC Kangaroo Court open for business.

On January 29, the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that Thomas Lubanga Dyilo could be tried "for war crimes consisting of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15." The 46-year-old Lubanga, a father of seven, was leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, a faction involved in fighting in the Congo in 1998. He was arrested in 2005. "Three boys and three girls, one only 10 years old when Congo's civil war broke out, were among those interviewed in preparing the case," the Washington Post reported. Lubanga, who is alleged to have presided over the deaths of UN peacekeepers and who was implicated in the 2004 disappearance of an Agence France-Presse reporter, according to the group Reporters sans Frontiers, maintains his innocence. His case will be the first tried by the ICC.

It is unlikely in the extreme that Lubanga will get a fair trial. As established, the ICC is capable of little more than conducting political show trials. ICC trials are held before a distant, unaccountable foreign judge. Moreover, the ICC does not recognize the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and does not guarantee a speedy trial.

In addition, if convicted by the ICC, the only appeal that can be made is to the same court that handed down the conviction. In the United States, the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed," the purpose of the amendment being to prevent a distant judge from arbitrarily and unjustly imposing his will upon the accused.