The newly established international criminal court risks being "fatally damaged" by demands that it cancel its first ever war crimes indictment because it is an obstacle to ending Uganda's 20-year civil war.

The dispute over a slew of charges against the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, who is accused of mass murder, rape, mutilations and abducting children to become soldiers, has opened a rift between African governments, which believe trials should be subordinated to local peace deals and reconciliation, and countries such as Britain which strongly back the ICC as establishing international justice.