"Justice denied anywhere...

...diminishes justice everywhere." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This Friday is International Justice Day, which commemorates the date when members of the international community ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; the treaty was adopted at a United Nations diplomatic conference in Rome in 1998 and become effective July 1, 2002 when enough countries signed the statement. The United States (and a few other countries), however, refuses to sign the agreement. The ratification established the International Criminal Court (ICC), seated at The Hague in the Netherlands, and allows this international body to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, bringing perpetrators to justice and restitution to victims. However, the ICC can only prosecute acts committed after the ICC's official inception in 2002. To date, the ICC has opened investigations of four situations, including the situation in Darfur.

In light of this day, our friends at SpendYourself have asked for our help in raising awareness. You may recall we selected SpendYourself as our family's Focus of the Month for June; feel free to read my post introducing this wonderful company our friends founded. Very soon, SpendYourself will be releasing their new series of shirts designed to raise awareness of injustices around the globe. On Monday, they will send out a follow-up post to the one I've just written, detailing more ways in which we can participate in the fight for justice, as well as debut the new shirts. If you would also like to participate in SpendYourself's blog campaign, simply write a post based on MLK's assessment of denied justice (see title) and email your link to leeATspendyourself.net. He'll then send you the follow-up post for you to share with others. Be sure to check out the SpendYourself website next week to order one of the new shirts!

There are so many ways through which we can help others, and raising awareness of these situations is just one small part of the solution; tell me, what is preventing us from being a part of the solution?