By Prof Obiora Okafor
The International Criminal Court (ICC)is one of the most important international institutions in the world. Some have even described it as the most important international institution that has emerged since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.

One measure of the ICC’s importance is the fact that it gives sleepless nights to those errant heads of states that grossly violate the human rights of their citizens. It is therefore an institution where Nigeria, a country that is by far largestand most important African and black state deserves to have a distinctive presence. But sadly, this is currently not the case.

It is a cardinal principle of the recently reinvigorated foreign policy of the current president Goodluck Jonathan Administration that Nigeria should and must play a leading role in important international multilateral institutions (such as the ICC). Another cardinal principle of Nigeria’s revamped foreign policy is that from now on, Nigeria will insist on earning an appreciable return for the money it invests in the conduct of its international relations within and without bodies such as the ICC.

But one institution that Nigeria has so far not fared well at by the measure of these two principles is the ICC. Beginning with the principle that Nigeria must begin to earn and claim a significant return on its investments in the conduct of international affairs. Nigeria’s current assessed contribution to the ICC is over 541,000 euros. This makes Nigeria the second highest African contributor to the annual budget of the ICC. Among African countries, only South Africa pays contributes more to the ICC budget than Nigeria. Buta South African judge has served on the ICC. Dr NaviPillay, the current UN High Commissioner for Humanis from South Africa, and served as a judge at the ICC before being appointed to her current position. Yet, despite being the second largest African financial contributor to the ICC, Nigeria has never served a turn on that court’s bench. Nor has Nigeria ever had the benefit of any of her citizens being appointed to serve in any senior position at the ICC.

This has been so despite the fact that many other (much smaller) African states that contribute as little as 10,000 euros (as against our relatively humungous 541,000 euros contribution) have enjoyed success at getting their citizens to serve as judges and principal officials of the ICC. These countries have punched far above their weight at the ICC, while Nigeria has so far punched far below its weight. To illustrate, there are seven African States whose citizens are currently serving on the ICC in senior positions (including as judges); and there are seven other African countries that are now currently competing with Nigeria in the judicial elections scheduled for this December.

Nigeria’s annual contribution to the ICC’s budget exceeds the combined total annual contributions of all 14 States. And this kind of scenario has played itself over the past nine years that the ICC has been in business. Nigeria has thus not earned anything close to a commensurate or even significant return on its investment in the ICC. Speaking in global terms, Nigeria is the second largest country (population-wise) that is a member of the ICC. The only ICC member that is larger than Nigeria is Brazil, which has successfully placed one of its citizens on the ICC’s bench.

Again, Nigeria is by far the largest common law country that is a member of the ICC, as well as the largest African country that is a member of that key global body. Needless to say, the time has now come for Nigeria to step up and take a judicial position in this exceedingly important international institution.

Happily, Nigeria has as we write fielded a superb candidate as her flag bearer in the ICC judicial elections billed to take place this December 2011. Nigeria’s candidate, Dr.Chile Eboe-Osuji, is one of the most highly qualified and most experienced international criminal lawyers of our time, and is widely respected around the world.

Among his other degrees, he holds a PhD in international criminal law. He received his legal education in Nigeria, North America and Europe. He has been practicing international criminal law longer than any of the other 18 candidates who are currently vying for election as judges of the ICC. He is currently the legal advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva (a very senior and influential position).

He is also concurrently serving as the principal appeals counsel to the Prosecutor of the Special Court of Sierra Leone in the Charles Taylor Case in The Hague. He had served a senior appeals counsel for the Prosecution at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown, Sierra Leone; senior trial counsel for the Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania; and as head judicial legal officer to the judges of the ICTR (where he helped them in drafting judgments and decisions).

As importantly, he has represented the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg; has taught international criminal law as a lecturer at the University of Ottawa, Canada;and has numerous published books and scholarly articles in international criminal law, international human rights law and international law. None of the other 19 candidates currently vying for election to a judicial office at the ICC even comes close to matching Dr. Eboe-Osuji’s very impressive credentials.