> Legally, it is like a private court. From the point of view of someone who is not a member, it's the same thing.

The US is not part of the Italian legal system, and yet when CIA officials were in Italy, and committed crimes in Italy, and were convicted by an Italian court for those crimes in absentia, is anyone questioning that?

* https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case

The crimes were committed in a country that gave jurisdiction to the court.

> The majority of UN member states are not democracies. If all of these non-democracies would set up a court, with the legitimacy of 'the majority of UN members', would they automatically have the right to prosecute the other countries?

If the prosecuted countries/people committed crimes in the jurisdictions of those non-democracies, yes it would have the right.

The crimes were allegedly occurred in Afghanistan, and the ICC has jurisdiction in Afghanistan because Afghanistan gave it.

> The ICC lacks universal territorial jurisdiction, and may only investigate and prosecute crimes committed within member states, crimes committed by nationals of member states, or crimes in situations referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court

If the alleged crimes happened in Somalia, which is a non-member / non-signatory (AFAICT), then the ICC would have no jurisdiction.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Sta...

They may not have the right, but they may have the power.

Also, more than 100 states out of 167 are democracies, so majority of states are democracies.

> more than 100 states out of 167 are democracies,

They're not.

The current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index lists 22 "full democracies", 64 "flawed democracies" and 24 "hybrid regimes".

  22+64 = 86
  86/167 = 51.5%

Majority of countries are democracies.

86 < 100

less than 100 states are democracies

Whether they are a majority or not is irrelevant to what lazyjones said.

Hybrid regimes are defined as "Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies.", so they ARE democracies with regular electoral frauds.

86 + 24 = 110 > 100

More than 100 states are democracies.

Democracies like… for example Belarus?

I can't think of a single real democracy that isn't deeply flawed except for Switzerland.

What is so special about Switzerland then? How is it so much better than say NZ?

It's the only direct democracy in the world, where the people really vote on issues instead of on representatives. For example, we don't really have a president. Laws written by parliament are put to quarterly nation-wide ballots.

I get to vote on what I believe is right on every issue, instead of getting tricked by politicians who have positions that they later compromise on.

> For example, we don't really have a president.

This actually nothing to do with being a direct democracy. You still have an executive cabinet selected by (but not responsible to) parliament. It's just that every member of the executive is selected by the parliament, instead of the parliament selecting a leader who picks the rest.

> I get to vote on what I believe is right on every issue, instead of getting tricked by politicians

You can still get tricked by politicians. America has very many citizens-initiated referenda, but it cannot be said to have improved their democratic outcomes.