Why the pope can't be tried | Paul Behrens

The International Criminal Court can only try crimes resulting from state-sponsored policies of atrocityChristopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have called for the prosecution of Benedict XVI, and the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, in an exercise of creativity, suggested that the abuse cases could be considered crimes against humanity and tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Hague-based court has that far started investigations only into a few selected situations: most prominently the bloody conflict in northern Uganda, the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the massacres in Sudan. It is an intriguing thought that the Vatican might be next on the list, and that the pope's next Easter mass will be broadcast from a prison cell. Only: It won't happen. Robertson probably knows that. True enough, the ICC can prosecute sexual slavery as a crime against humanity – as well as rape and other sexual offences....

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