Water 2020, 12, 340 12 of 28 law, an idea put forth by Arendt regarding the trial of Adolf Eichmann in an Israeli court in 1961. Simpson writes, “Arendt argued that law and pedagogy are fundamentally at odds . . . A trial that had one eye on educating the public was bound to fail as law” [69]. Contemporary international tribunals are designed to avoid the biases and politicisation associated with national war trials. Though the ICC has faced challenges since its inception, including accusations of bias due to the high percentage of African cases pursued and a series of state-withdrawals from the Rome Statute in 2016, the ICC has prosecuted war criminals. The Rome Statute presents a different approach to the enforceability challenges inherent in international law, which may have interesting consequences for the human right to water. The ICC’s jurisdiction only extends to crimes committed in the territory of a state party or committed by a national of a state party [70]. This significantly narrows ICC jurisdiction—the US, for example, is not a state party, and its nationals are therefore unlikely to be prosecuted. The exception is that the UN Security Council (UNSC) is able to refer situations to the ICC, enabling the Court to investigate all Rome Statute crimes in any UN member state without further prerequisites—a comparatively larger pool of 193 UN member states compared with 122 Rome Statute state parties. This presents a wider jurisdiction than, for example, the UNWC, with a jurisdiction completely dependent on ratification by states. The UNWC falls in the middle of a vast spectrum of enforceability (35 ratifications by state parties required). Once entered into force, however, enforcement of the Convention is still dubious—“[t]he recommendations of the commission are not binding on states”, they are merely required to “consider them in good faith”[71]. The ICC would not have been able to investigate situations in Darfur and Libya if not for UNSC referrals as neither Sudan nor Libya are parties to the Rome Statute. ICC jurisdiction is still significantly restricted, however, by UNSC permanent member states’ veto powers. China and Russia vetoed a 2015 draft Resolution proposed by France to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC [72]. National interests of permanent UNSC members effectively limit ICC jurisdiction, resulting in a great unlikelihood that certain situations in countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute can be investigated. The ICC has yet to prosecute human right to water violations. In September 2016, however, the ICC announced a potentially momentous change of focus, declaring that in addition to war crimes and genocide, it would prioritise crimes resulting in the “destruction of the environment”, “exploitation of natural resources”, and “illegal dispossession of land” [73]. Mentions of “land grabbing” and “destruction of the environment” [73] are particularly interesting regarding Palestine’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute. To the dismay of water rights advocates, the 18-page policy paper by Chief Prosecutor Bensouda did not mention exploitation and destruction of water resources. It is logical to assume that water is included in the Court’s understanding of “natural resources”, but it remains to be seen how water will factor into ICC cases. Although water is not explicitly addressed in the 2016 paper or Rome Statute, violations of the right to water implicitly fall within Article 7 of the Rome Statute, “Crimes against humanity”, which include “inhumane acts . . . intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” as crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction [70]. Furthermore, Article 6, “Genocide”, includes “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group”, including “[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” [70]. Article 8 defines war crimes as “Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions” [70]. The ICC��s stated intent to focus on destruction of natural resources is promising. However, the Court’s ability to recognise water’s role within this new purview is hindered by the absence of an international treaty explicitly outlining states’ legally binding obligations to protect the human right to water. The Court’s ability to consider the human right to water in its case selections and investigations is hindered by sorely out-of-date international laws on water during armed conflict. The Court’s intended pivot towards a focus on environmental destruction offers hope that violations of the human