A group of government officials, NGO activists and journalists visited the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands recently. Led by Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana, the delegation intended to learn about academic studies as well as administrative and technical procedures required for ratifying the 1998 Rome Statute (The Jakarta Post, March 4).

It was not the first mission sent by the government to the ICC. According to the president of the ICC, judge Sang-hyun Song, many Indonesian delegates have come to the court with the same objective, but the country missed the ratification momentum in 2008 based on the National Action Plan for Human Rights 2004-2009.

The ratification plan was then included in the National Action Plan for Human Rights 2011-2014, which sets the date of accession of the statute as 2013.

For many years, exp...