Appeasing dictators is never the right thing to do

YESTERDAY The Scotsman revealed that Britain was supporting a plan to offer Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, immunity from a genocide indictment issued by the International Criminal Court, which tries cases of human rights abuse. This is a dubious move on the part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and calls into question the independence of the ICC.

On 14 July, Bashir was formally accused by the ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, of ten counts of organising genocide in Darfur. The regime in Khartoum has engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing of African peasant farmers in Darfur, on ...