Posted: 22 Feb 2010 10:29 PM PST
by Kevin Jon Heller
Sure, it’s in Roman Polanski’s new film, The Ghost Writer. But it’s still cool — especially when the Prime Minister, played by an excellent Pierce Brosnan, is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting torture by the United States!
I have to admit, I never thought I’d live to see Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute — the aiding and abetting provision — read word-for-word in a film. And that’s not all: not only does the film properly invokes Article 7 and Article 8 as covering crimes against humanity and war crimes respecitvely, the scenario it depicts could actually result in an ICC prosecution.
That said, the film does make two errors — one blatant, one subtle. The blatant error is that it refers to the “Special Prosecutor” of the ICC. The subtle error (minor spoiler alert!) is that it implies that an unwilling witness could be required to testify, when the ICC lacks subpoena power.
On the bright side, the “Special Prosecutor” in the film is a woman. We all know that would be an improvement over the current one…
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want to watch the movie
