When warrants are served against civilians, they find them and arrest them. The whereabouts of war criminals are usually known, as they often appear publicly, so are they not arrested in the same way as civies?
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Unless the country where the accused is currently located wants to turn them over, the warrants are entirely symbolic. The ICC doesn’t have people they can send into countries and make arrests, and if they did, they’d likely have to deal with the military.
That doesn’t mean they have no value, but an ICC warrant will not lead to an arrest like one from the local sheriff.
Basically a country that has ratified the founding and functioning of ICC will apply the warrant in case the person is on their territory. Obviously, a country that doesn’t cooperate with ICC will do nothing.
The United Nation’s Security Council is empowered to enforce rulings by the International Court of Justice, but the International Criminal Court has absolutely no enforcement arm. Signatory nations that agree to work with the ICC can enforce warrants and rulings on their own citizen, but if the “Defendant” is a citizen of a nation that doesn’t recognize the ICC…it’s barely more than a strongly worded letter of protest.
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