Paving the way for international justice
International Criminal Court faces potent opposition from the U.S.
The start of Slobodan Milosevic’s trial on Tuesday is giving the confused world of international human rights a rare week in the spotlight. For those willing to peel away the outer layers of this onion, it is a spotlight that goes beyond the emotional reactions of our brief, media-dependent connections with mass violence.
International courts, established to wring justice out of madness for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, are wandering into uncertain terrain for international law. Bringing to justice leaders that dare to prey on their own and neighbouring peoples to justice is popular with the citizens of liberal democracies, but many national leaders are concerned about courts meddling in their business.
The deep thinkers running the great powers of the world are uncertain if they want international courts, beholden to no one, passing judgment on them and their allies. Deterring unaffiliated evil folks is a good thing, but spreading a good thing too far can get in the way of important strategic interests. Just ask Henry Kissinger.
The U.S. administration is particularly leery of being held accountable for its military and covert operations (or those conducted with U.S. funding). The Bush Gang is trying to decide whether to ignore the International Criminal Court and its ad hoc predecessors – progress on the court was non-existent until the horrors perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early ’90s spawned the two ad hoc courts – or try to undermine them. Being tossed out of the UN’s human rights commission last year did not help matters.
The U.S. concerns are heightened now that they are engaged in a war on terrorism and have a camp full of prisoners of uncertain legal status (the U.S. term, illegal combatant, is not recognized in international law) whom some members of the Bush administration have considered torturing.
In between all this is the International Criminal Court, the permanent court that the United Nations is attempting to establish to take on future Rwandas and Serbias without the uncertainty of the ad hoc tribunals, which have encountered problems defining their jurisdiction and enforcing their edicts. Hoping to build on the relative success of the Nuremberg Trials, the idea of an international court was floated in 1948 as part of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Progress on the court was non-existent until the horrors perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early ’90s spawned the two ad hoc courts.
Finally freed from the ideological constraints of the Cold War, when most abuses in the name of communism and the U.S. version of freedom and democracy were tolerated in their own sphere, the concept of international justice has flourished recently. In 1998, the UN committee looking at the issue completed a draft convention. At a UN conference later that year, 139 countries signed the convention.
Internationally, justice is an abused term at the best of times. Americans and Europeans have used it to justify their wars since the Crusades. Today, the attacks on Moscow apartment buildings and the World Trade Center give powerful countries the ability to garner righteous pubic support for their assault on folks who do not agree with their world view.
Yet, even as world powers are gaining public justification for their international military actions (positive and negative), the two international courts are slowly bringing some of the decision-makers responsible for the horrific events in Rwanda and Serbia to account. In both cases, capturing the persons being called to account has proved difficult. In Rwanda, there is no jail that meets United Nations’ standards, and it is difficult to convince people that criminals in a UN-sanctioned jail are being punished – the prisoner’s life looks rather comfortable compared to many a Rwandan’s daily existence.
The International Criminal Court is meant to overcome some of these technical difficulties, but it still has its flaws. The most serious flaw is that the more powerful nations in the world will be, for all practical purposes, immune from prosecution by the court.
The International Criminal Court will not take on China over its treatment of Tibetans, Russia over its conduct in Chechnya, or the U.S. bombing of Cambodia – not only because the court cannot review events that pre-date its inception, but also because it is an instrument to bring evildoers spawned in poor and small countries to justice, not the leaders of U.S., China or Russia.
The irony here is that these same world powers are balking at creating the court out of a fear it will prosecute them. The U.S., for example, has demanded that its military personnel be exempt from prosecution. China and Russia have all but ignored the process and have yet to even sign the convention.
Without the involvement of these powers, the court will face a rough start, but with 52 of the required ratifications in place, you can expect it to be established sometime this year.
International Criminal Court timeline:
· UN first investigated the possibility of an international court to judge genocide in 1948.
· The project was put on hold in 1953.
· The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established in 1993.
· UN conference on the convention on the establishment of an international criminal court, held in Rome, 1998 – 139 countries signed the convention; 52 countries have ratified the convention; Canada ratified July 2000; 60 ratifications are necessary to establish the court.
Web sites:
· International Criminal Court – www.un.org/law/icc/general/overview.htm
· Former Yugoslavia tribunal – www.un.org/icty
· Rwanda Tribunal – www.ictr.org/ |
