Kuala Lampur, July 4 -- JULY 4 - There is a smell when an institution starts cooking its procedures to order: scent of diplomats in a sealed room discovering that the rules they wrote have become inconveniently indigestible.

The International Criminal Court was meant to be where power met a law it could not bomb, bribe, sanction or bully into silence. No backdoor for presidents and generals.

Which makes the reported manoeuvring over Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan so spectacularly awkward.

According to Middle East Eye, the ICC's political bureau has approved a process combining two previously separate decisions: whether Khan committed serious misconduct, and whether he should be removed. One vote. One motion. One clean swing of the diploma...