The International Criminal Court in the Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and two of his top associates, one being his son. See this Reuters article on Yahoo News for details.
The international consensus has been to get Gaddafi to leave Libya so the Libyans can form a new government. This outstanding "crimes against humanity" warrant encourages Gaddafi to tough it out in Tripoli as his alternative is prison.
In other words, this action by the ICC seems ill-timed. Logically, waiting until Gaddafi left Libya before issuing the warrant would have made more sense, and would have greatly increased the odds of successfully bringing him to trial.
Another view is that the arrest warrant is a bargaining position, something to be dropped in return for Gaddafi leaving power. My sense is the ICC is unwilling to participate in horse-trading. We'll see what happens.
