Corporate identity

Eleven British soldiers have been charged under the statute (whatever that means) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with war crimes in Iraq and are to stand trial in Britain. Sky News, which I've started watching during the London bombing inquiry because they reported rumors and speculations much more quickly than the BBC, which still often behaves as the moutpiece of Her Majesty's Government, carried the news this morning accompanied by pictures of, you guessed it, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, or ICTY, also in The Hague. To complete the confusion, The Hague is also host to the International Court of Justice, or ICJ; if I remember correctly, Boris Tadić referred to the ICJ when he should have mentioned the ICTY in remarks to the press he made last week.

If the president of a country that has a lot of business with the ICTY and the ICJ can't keep them apart, what are we mere mortals to do? The least they could do is, as a matter of urgency, to move two of the three to, say, Cork and Riga, if it has to be in Europe at all. Any other suggestions?