United States has recently threatened to prosecute ICC officials if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
ICC is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal.
It is headquartered in The Hague in the Netherlands.
It has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, crime of aggression and war crimes.
It is the world‘s first permanent international criminal court.
It is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore only exercise its jurisdiction when certain conditions are met.
States which become party to the Rome Statute becomes member of ICC and the co-operation of the non-party states with the ICC is of voluntary nature.
But when a case is referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council, all UN member states are obliged to cooperate, since its decisions are binding for all of them.
India is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.
The United States has not signed up to the court and in 2002, its Congress passed a law enabling U.S to invade the Netherlands to liberate any U.S. citizen held by the court.
Bru Refugees
Union government has given a choice to Bru refugees in relief camps in Tripura, to either go back to their villages in Mizoram or be ready to be denied free ration and other facilities.
In 1990s, Mizo nationalists had demanded that the Brus be left out of the state's electoral rolls, contending that the tribe was not indigenous to Mizoram.
The Bru militancy was a reactionary movement against Mizo nationalist groups.
In 1997, the murder of a Mizo forest guard at the Dampa Tiger Reserve in Mizoram allegedly by Bru militants led to a violent backlash against the community.
It forced several thousand people belonging to Bru community to flee to neighbouring Tripura.
The displaced Bru people from Mizoram have been living in various camps in Tripura since 1997.
Recently, the Centre and the state governments of Tripura and Mizoram has recently signed an agreement for repatriation of Bru community from Tripura to Mizoram.
Whale Sanctuary
Whale Sanctuary was proposed in South Atlantic by 39 countries in International Whaling Commission.
It was meant to provide haven for endangered marine mammals.
The idea was proposed by Brazil in 2001 in IWC meeting.
It was co-sponsored by Argentina, Gabon, South Africa and Uruguay.
In the recently concluded session of IWC in Brazil, pro-whaling nations blocked the proposal of setting up of sanctuary.
