Bashar al-Assad, who has been the President of Syria since the year 2000, has been credibly accused of mass murder of Syrian civilians including through the use of chemical weapons. The reasons given for why he was never called to trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have always been that Syria is not a member country of the ICC and that Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council referral to the ICC.

Until about a week ago those reasons were plausible. Today however they no longer are. Israel is also not a member country of the ICC and there was no United Nations Security Council resolution referring Netanyahu to the ICC. Even so the ICC made it clear that on principle it has no problem issuing arrest warrants and demanding that Netanyahu stand trial by them. That being the case why doesn’t it issue one to Assad as well?

This is NOT a question about your opinion on the Israel-Hamas war - it is a question on why the ICC doesn’t put Assad on trial.