It is now 70 years after what was perhaps the most important trial in the history of mankind. What makes this circumstance particularly significant is that it was the first time in history that a murderous regime of a defeated state was put to trial by the victorious powers after a particularly cruel and vicious war. The defendants were tried for acts that confounded human understanding or were not considered criminal before 1945. The exception were those few cases that were prosecuted for war crimes after World War I.
Perhaps it would be easy to disparage Nuremberg saying that the defeated had been tried by the “victors’ justice.”… Seguir leyendo »
The trial of Côte d'Ivoire’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and the ex-militia leader Charles Blé Goudé, which opened at the International Criminal Court (ICC) last month, made me reflect on the broader lessons for the west African country – and elsewhere. Does the ICC end conflict or help to exacerbate it?
A decade ago, I was a UN sanctions inspector in Côte d'Ivoire, a role I had previously performed in Liberia. I was an eyewitness to the devastation that Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president who is serving a 50-year jail sentence for war crimes, caused to Liberia and its neighbours.… Seguir leyendo »
After days of wrangling to try and have him arrested the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, has left South Africa before a court there could decide whether to arrest him.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been trying for years to have al-Bashir apprehended since charging him with the commission of atrocities against civilians in Darfur, which resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 people. He has flouted the ICC’s arrest warrant since it was issued in 2009, blithely travelling throughout Africa and the Middle East despite a UN Security Council resolution that requires all states to co-operate with the ICC.
There were some signs that this time, things might be different.… Seguir leyendo »
El Tribunal Penal Internacional tiene abierto un «examen preliminar» sobre la situación en Colombia por si en el país se hubieran producido situaciones encuadradas en los crímenes de guerra, genocidio o contra la humanidad que figuran en el Estatuto de Roma de 1998. La evolución de las negociaciones de La Habana entre el Gobierno colombiano del presidente Santos y la guerrilla de las FARC, grupo incluido en la lista de bandas terroristas de Estados Unidos y de la Unión Europea, ha dado lugar a una intensa relación entre la Fiscalía colombiana y la del TPI, interesada aquella en investigar las fronteras de lo permisible en el trato dispensado a los guerrilleros en el marco de lo dispuesto en el Estatuto de Roma, y preocupada esta en impedir que el proceso de paz desemboque en la impunidad.… Seguir leyendo »
When prosecutors at the International Criminal Court declared in late 2009 that they would pursue those most responsible for the violence that swept Kenya following the 2007 election, many people rejoiced: Kenyans, long accustomed to seeing their leaders get away with almost anything, staked their hopes for a new accountability on the I.C.C. Unfortunately, those high hopes have been dashed. In a curious irony, the Hague-based court has inadvertently stoked tensions in the Rift Valley, the ethnically divided tinderbox that saw the worst fighting in that contentious election period.
On Dec. 5, I.C.C. prosecutors announced they would drop their case against President Uhuru Kenyatta, admitting that they had no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction on charges of crimes against humanity during the 2007 bloodletting.… Seguir leyendo »
This summer’s war in Gaza was the latest episode in a cycle of mistrust, aggression and destruction. Yet again the world is counting the cost in lives, homes, hospitals, schools, factories and other civilian infrastructure. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, at least half of them civilians and around a quarter of them children. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers also died, as well as five civilians, including one child.
This cycle of violence will only be broken when the international community insists upon greater accountability and ceases to turn a blind eye to the horrific human rights violations committed by both sides.… Seguir leyendo »
Will he or won’t he? That is the question Kenyans have been asking in recent weeks. The International Criminal Court has ordered President Uhuru Kenyatta to appear, in person, before the tribunal on Wednesday for alleged crimes against humanity. Will he comply, or will he follow the urging of the African Union and refuse — sending a signal that a court biased against Africa has no right to judge a sitting African head of state?
The president’s legal team has advised him to go to The Hague, if only to avoid an international outcry and a possible Interpol arrest warrant. Either way, it will be a punctuation point in the I.C.C.’s… Seguir leyendo »
The conflict in South Sudan is only the latest instance where extreme violence has erupted after a breakdown of political order. But rather than prioritizing political reform, the international community tends to focus on criminalizing the perpetrators of violence.
Since the end of the Cold War, the world has looked to the Nuremberg Trials as a model for closure in the wake of extreme violence; international criminal trials are the preferred response. This common sense should have come under scrutiny in recent months after a growing number of countries in the African Union advocated withdrawal from the International Criminal Court. Instead, the debate has focused on the motives of African leaders, not on the inadequacy of court trials as a response to politically driven mass violence.… Seguir leyendo »
Members of the African Union will meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today to discuss recent calls by some African leaders to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. These calls must be resisted. The continent has suffered the consequences of unaccountable governance for too long to disown the protections offered by the I.C.C.
Those leaders seeking to skirt the court are effectively looking for a license to kill, maim and oppress their own people without consequence. They believe the interests of the people should not stand in the way of their ambitions of wealth and power; that being held to account by the I.C.C.… Seguir leyendo »
Este mes Croacia se ha convertido en el país número 28 de la UE. A los 22 años de su independencia, a los 18 del genocidio de Srebrenica y de la Operación Tormenta, a los 8 del arresto de Ante Gotovina en Las Canarias. A unos meses de la absolución en apelación de los altos jefes policiales y militares Ante Gotovina y Mladen Markac (Croacia), condenados en primera instancia a 24 y 18 años, y a semanas de la de Momcilo Perisic, Jovica Stanisic y Franko Simatovic (Serbia). La entrega de los criminales al Tribunal Penal Internacional para la ex-Yugoslavia (TPIY) era una condición para la admisión en la UE.… Seguir leyendo »
When the International Criminal Court made public an arrest warrant in November for Simone Gbagbo, a former first lady of Ivory Coast, on charges of crimes against humanity, it set two precedents. For the first time, it had indicted a woman — and someone who had held no formal public office. The previous year, Mrs. Gbagbo’s husband, Laurent, became the first former head of state to face trial before the I.C.C. He is charged with thousands of murders and “other inhuman acts” after refusing to accept defeat in a presidential election that was held in November 2010.
The indictments of the Gbagbos are welcome, but they don’t bring the court any closer to confronting the fundamental causes of the violence that has plagued Ivory Coast — and most of sub-Saharan African — for centuries.… Seguir leyendo »
Against the background of mounting bloodshed and terror, Switzerland has asked the UN security council to refer the situation in Syria to the International criminal court. The aim is to send out an unequivocal message to all parties "to fully respect international human rights and humanitarian law", a warning that would have "an important dissuasive effect".
The request is supported by more than 50 countries from every part of the world, including several countries with firsthand experience of systematic human rights abuses and impunity, like Chile and Libya. Britain and France support the initiative, but have not so far been joined by the three other permanent members of the security council.… Seguir leyendo »
Americans love sensational stories of violence and unusual cruelty. The latest, of course, being the drug-crazed cannibalism of a Miami man, or the Canadian porn star suspected of dismembering a victim.
Yet run the name Charles Taylor by your average crime blog watcher and wait for the reaction.
Anything? Taylor is the former president of Liberia, who engineered his election into office after prevailing in the civil war he instigated. He also masterminded the massacres ofSierra Leone's civil war, where 50,000 people died, millions were forced to flee their homes and much of the country's population was mutilated — hands, feet and legs hacked off by rebels.… Seguir leyendo »
The United States and other governments don’t want to intervene militarily in Syria. That’s understandable; hardly anyone wants another Middle East war.
In seeking other ways to ensure that the Syrian government and its henchmen pay a price for slaughtering their citizens, United States officials are seeking ways to bring them to justice. A war crimes tribunal run by the Arab League could be the solution. The experience of war-torn countries like Bosnia has proved that such tribunals can work, if properly designed.
Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States would “support and train Syrian citizens working to document atrocities, identify perpetrators, and safeguard evidence for future investigations and prosecutions.”… Seguir leyendo »
The African Union last month announced a plan to improve coordination to end atrocities by Joseph Kony's Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Efforts to arrest Kony and other LRA leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to end LRA abuses are needed urgently. But that is only half of the picture; addressing the legacy of the LRA and Ugandan army abuses is the other. This history of abuse also has implications for U.S. and other foreign support for Ugandan-led arrest operations against Kony.
The LRA emerged partly as a response to the Ugandan government's marginalization of the people of northern Uganda, policies maintained by President Yoweri Museveni since he took power in the mid-1980s.… Seguir leyendo »
Justice will be a long time coming in Syria, but it can begin with a Security Council referral of the situation in that wounded country to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and, ultimately, prosecution. The obstacles are serious, but the goal is imperative.
This week, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé called for such a referral to the ICC during a session of the UN Human Rights Council that sharply attacked the Syrian regime for its deadly assaults on civilians in Homs and elsewhere in Syria. A report by UN legal experts found that crimes against humanity are being waged by Syrian forces against civilians under the leadership of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.… Seguir leyendo »
International criminal courts usually begin their work with a mid-ranking defendant and impose a heavy sentence after their first conviction. The war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia were the first to do so.
On Friday, the appeals chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia — a mixed tribunal based in Phnom Penh and tasked with trying the worst offenders of the Pol Pot regime — followed in their footsteps: it imposed a life sentence on Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, the 69-year-old former commander of the Khmer Rouge’s infamous S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where between 1975 and 1979 more than 12,000 people were detained, tortured and sent for execution.… Seguir leyendo »
Ayer tuvo lugar un acontecimiento importante que quizás pasó desapercibido para todos aquellos que consideran que los únicos problemas que les afectan son los próximos, los locales. La Sala de Cuestiones Preliminares de la Corte Penal Internacional emitió orden de detención por crímenes contra la humanidad, producidos en Libia a partir del mes de febrero de 2011 contra Muhamad Al Gadafi, su hijo Said Al Islam y el responsable de los servicios de inteligencia militar, Abdullah Al Sanussi.
Es cierto que la importancia de las cosas siempre es relativa y está en función de lo que consideramos más urgente o perentorio o según lo que pueda afectarnos de forma directa e inmediata.… Seguir leyendo »
EL presidente Obama ha anunciado a bombo y platillo la decisión que tomó el pasado sábado el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU de enviar a Muamar al-Gadafi a la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) para que sea juzgado. Aunque Gadafi merece un castigo, la CPI no logrará aplicárselo. Invocar esta organización marginal como un instrumento de justicia es simplemente renunciar a la responsabilidad propia. Finge hacer frente a una crisis internacional cuando, en realidad, está haciendo lo contrario.
La CPI es una de las instituciones multilaterales más ilegítimas del mundo. La inmensa autoridad fiscal del tribunal no está obligada a rendir cuentas ante ningún sistema democrático.… Seguir leyendo »
The International Criminal Court's member countries will gather in May in Kampala, Uganda, where they will spend most of their conference considering whether to expand the court's jurisdiction to include the "crime of aggression." This is a bad idea on many levels.
The ICC was established to be a standing international mechanism to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Eight trials are underway at the court, all arising out of civil wars in Africa. The court has yet to convict a defendant of any of these offenses.
Nor has the ICC ever prosecuted a case arising out of a conflict between states.… Seguir leyendo »
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