Impunity is when people can commit crimes without punishment, often protected by government laws. This leads to human rights violations and oppression. The International Criminal Court can prosecute those who commit serious crimes against humanity, but it can be difficult to enforce in powerful countries. Some argue that the United States has acted with impunity, but opinions are divided on whether they acted within the law.
When people are able to commit crimes without suffering consequences, such as punishment, this is referred to as impunity. Impunity may form part of the legal protections in a government’s laws and may extend to those employed by the state such as government officials, military personnel, or others. Alternatively, a state may not have laws that punish those who commit serious anti-humanitarian acts. Using this concept within government is generally considered one of the easiest ways to sustain a constant stream of vicious human rights violations. When people can act without fear of punishment, they often act in exceptionally brutal ways, and such acts oppress freedom within the state while shocking and inconveniencing other countries.
Hopefully, improvements in states will change impunity laws, or lack thereof, which punish those who have not previously been held accountable for horrendous deeds such as torture and murder. Especially when states have significant changes in power, the international legal community urges them not to extend protections to those who have granted impunity in the past. Many states are willing to create new laws and punish those who have committed extreme crimes against humanity, if they can find and arrest them.
Sometimes other states will give protection to people with extremely nasty pasts and continue to extend them impunity, even if a new government prosecutes them. The international legal community may also view it unfavorably and could take steps to try and stop this behavior. In particular, those who have clearly committed serious crimes against humanity can be arrested and tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
While it is this court’s preference to encourage states to prosecute their own nationals, the court can intervene because it is authorized by the Geneva Convention, the Convention against Torture and the Rome Statute to prosecute people it considers to be serious human rights violations, regardless of from the country of origin. The people prosecuted are usually heads of government or high-ranking government officials. The ICC, when it can arrest and try someone, demonstrates that the international community has little tolerance for impunity. Rather, it suggests that most countries require accountability for horrific crimes.
In this, the ICC is not always completely successful. There are still many heads of state who commit human rights violations and continue to act with impunity. It can be difficult to enforce world rules in countries that are in complete control of dictators or to act when countries are large and powerful.
Some have argued that some actions taken by the United States since 9/11 were human rights violations and those who sanctioned those actions should be prosecuted. Anyone associated with the government in this era is unlikely to be prosecuted in national or world courts, although there are international and local groups who believe the impunity encouraging in the United States is opposed to the ideas of freedom on which the country was founded . Others equally and passionately argue that the United States acted within all international and domestic laws.
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