Nairobi — African states have been urged to support the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an institution that can be sued to further justice and peace.

The President of the appeals division at the ICC says that Kenyans should not give credibility to the misinformed notion that the court is a western imposition on Africa, as a way of humiliating the continent and subverting the sovereignty of African States.

Prof Daniel Nsereko said that international criminal justice aims to confront a set of heinous conduct that violates universally shared values and which offends the international community as a whole.

"Such conduct includes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression which is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations," he told participants during the International Commission of Jurists 50th anniversary conference at the Mombasa Continental Resort.

Perpetrators of such crimes, he said can be viewed as enemies of humanity and are therefore accountable to the international community as a whole.

He also said that under international crime, even Heads of State or persons occupying any other top political position in the country are subject to prosecution, saying that their status is not a license for committing heinous acts or any other crimes.

He added that although some countries may not have the capacity to fulfill the responsibility of locally prosecuting perpetrators, international law has developed the universality principle as an important component of international criminal justice to address the problem.

"This principle authorizes any State to try and punish perpetrators of international crimes, irrespective of the territory where the crimes took place, nationality of the perpetrator or the victims," he said.

In that regard, States act as agents for and on behalf of the international community to ensure that justice is done and that no other perpetrator of heinous crime goes unpunished because of the inability of the State where one committed the crimes to try them.

"If a State cannot or will not exercise jurisdiction over such crimes, then it is obliged to surrender the perpetrator to any other State that is able and willing to do so," he said.