most countries often claim themselves to be democratic by conducting elections.how did this happen in the context of myanmar and libya?
Answers
It was not clear in 2002 how the court would function precisely because of the multitude of challenges it faced. Eleven years later only some of those questions have been resolved. [...] It is clear, however, that theICC is an institution with the capacity to change habits and outcomes. We may be seeing the start of that in Kenya today, where the electoral violence of 2007 has thankfully not been repeated, perhaps because of its ongoing intervention which was a major topic throughout the political campaign.
Established institutions condition the conduct of their leaders and those who work within their structures. New institutions, however, are conditioned by the personalities and characteristics of their first leaders and staffs, as they lack existing institutional controls and cultures.1 This was clearly the case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its prosecutorial division, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), and an understanding of the Court requires an appreciation of the circumstances of their creation and first 11 years of operation.
Since its inception in July 2002, the OTP has faced two primary critiques: first that it has been inefficient, and second that it has preoccupied itself with Africa and failed to investigate equally severe conflicts elsewhere. These criticisms do not arise in a vacuum, however, and must be understood within the context of the court’s recent creation, administrative and personnel challenges, legal impediments imposed by the Rome Statute, and external pressure to prosecute as many cases as possible in order to satisfy its value-oriented goal of “guarantee[ing] lasting respect for and the enforcement of international justice.”2 These factors have made the choices of the prosecutor largely inevitable, although future practice must be reformed.
In assessing the work of the ICC and the OTP, one must come up with a benchmark against which to measure it. But it is unclear what standard should be used as the ICC is a sui generis institution that had to be built from the ground up within the context of ongoing conflicts that demanded immediate attention. While it shares some similarities to the practices and procedures of national judicial institutions, it is also forging a new path based on the adoption and incorporation of practices and staff representing divergent legal philosophies, traditions and practices. It also shares some similarities to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), as well as to some extent the mixed model tribunals (Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor, and Lebanon), but again its provisions make it different in scope and operation from those institutions. Nevertheless, there are some relatively objective characteristics and factors that are applicable to the evaluation of the court and its prosecutor, the person upon whom the enormous responsibility was bestowed to establish and run its investigatory and prosecutorial arm.
The first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, was sworn in in June 2003 and tasked with establishing the OTP, which is the investigative and prosecutorial engine of the ICC.3 This significant project not only required the development of prosecutorial policies based on his interpretation of theRome Statute and the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, but also the nuts and bolts of hiring personnel, creating internal and administrative structures, and developing procedures and professional accountability mechanisms from scratch. Further, all of this had to be done within the context of UNstandards of diversity and national quotas, which often led to a modern day tower of babel as lawyers attempted to meld together divergent and sometimes mutually exclusive policies and practices.
Off course the elections in most countries of the world are the claims to be a democratic country as elections are the base of democracy. This thing is also happened in countries like Libya and Myanmar. The elections in these countries are a mere show to the world as democratic countries. The elections are held only to legitimize the government.
Otherwise the elections in these countries are controlled by military and mostly dictator politicians or parties.The 2010 elections in Myanmar were internationally dismissed as fraudulent.