Do We Need a Court to Define Genocide?

Justice can be slow - really slow. Cases may take several years before there is any definitive outcome or ruling. However, when it comes down to international law, how effective are entities such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court if it takes years just to decide inconsequentials such as semantics before deciding if there was even a wrong committed?

People have been debating international law ever since it was created and of course accusations of the U.S. being unilateral and not complying with international law makes it more difficult for the law to even be relevant or effective in holding countries accountable against widely accepted standards. However, the idea behind international law is to create a set of rules by which, theoretically, all countries agree to and comply with.

Recently, the International Court of Justice handed down rulings on the "alleged" genocides in Bosnia-Herzogovina in the early 1990s and in Darfur, a region of the Sudan. The Court decided that in neither case could the atrocities that happened be technically labeled as genocide due to a lack of evidence.

As decided by the Genocide Convention in 1948, genocide is defined as certain atrocities (such as killing or causing some sort of bodily harm) committed wtih the intent to destroy a specific group of the population. Although nice in ideals that the convention decided to spend time coining what genocide meant, the definition does little good if no action stems from it - or worse yet, physical evidence does not coinside with what the eyes can see.

In the awful case of Darfur, we have seen and read of the atrocities with which the government sponsored militia, have gone after citizens (men, women and children regardless of age). Despite all of that, a solid enough case that would withstand a court proceeding could not be mustered to bring any sort of justice to Darfur.

So, the question is what good does it do to even have such proceedings when blatant genocide is occurring and the courts are wasting time pouring over whether to even call mass slaughters or rapes genocide as hundreds of thousands are left for dead or displaced from their homes?

At what point, do we transcend the courts and the international community actually steps in for action? It doesn't take a judge to rule that something has gone very wrong when we are seeing people killed by their own governments. As part of the human race, is it too idealistic and too much to ask that governments look out for everyone - even if it is not there "own people" so to speak?