As
the Libyan case shows, the International Criminal Court is far more likely to
prosecute those its powerful members oppose (or, indeed, have overthrown) than
those they have supported diplomatically, economically, and militarily. And
anyone who does not think the law is as much shaped by political pressure as
statute -- whether it is the U.S. Supreme Court judgment on the Affordable Care
Act, the German Constitutional Court's current consideration of the legality of
Germany's participation in various European financial bailout mechanisms, or
the decisions at The Hague of whom to indict and to whom to give a pass -- has
probably not been paying attention. With the exception of Russia and Iran, the
major world powers as well as important elements of the U.N. Secretariat have
either explicitly or implicitly come out for the rebels, and designating what
is now taking place (whether or not the ICRC intended to do so) as "civil war" establishes a
moral and institutional equivalence between the government and the insurgents
that serves to partly legitimize the rebellion and delegitimize the Assad
regime.