I just wrote a post over at Transitional Justice Forum about the ICC get its hands on its first indictee. He is Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I raise a question there as to whether the timing of this is in some way a reaction to the fiascos of (1) the death of Milosevic and (2)the continuing deterioration of Saddam’s trial in Baghdad, both of which developments have started to show that the broad “project” of using high-profile war-crimes trials to try to help heal grave political conflict has not been as successful as many in the human-rights movement previously hoped…
I’ll be doing an hour-long call-in show on this issue, on some west-coast (US) -based radio station, later this week. Heck, I should probably get some more details about that so I can invite you all to tune in… All this is connected to the article I have on international war-crimes trials in the current issue of Foreign Policy.
Btw, I have now found a late-proof PDF version of this article and have posted it into the archive here, with a link on the JWN sidebar. (Readers should simply ignore the meaningless Latin, which is used there as a space-holder… Also, the blank spaces on the pages, which are where the mag’s ads go.)
So now you can comment on the FP piece, here– or on my post on the ICC, over there at TJF.
4 thoughts on “ICC “gets” its first man”
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Somebody pointed out that while the UN had lost 2 of it’s prisoners to deaths, the US in Guantanamo hadn’t lost any. Of course, they’ve lost some in Abu Ghraib but that’s just another reason to shut it down.
Good article, Helena. The last sentence opens the question of the intention of reducing sovereignty.
In our declaration on March 18th we said that there can be no question of compromise on national sovereignty until there is no more war or weapons of war.
That is the way forward, not these rich man’s trials of poor people.
Ramesh Thakur, the vice-rector of the UN University, coined the term “judicial colonialism” for the way these courts operate. Darn it! Why didn’t I think of that first!
Helena,
As you may agree, the so-called “trial” of Saddam most decidedly has nothing to do with healing anything but the Bush administration’s tattered image. Part of that is attempting to make it look as if Iraqis are running the “trial”, which is clearly not the case. It is certainly not about healing political or any other kind of conflict within Iraq. It is also not about justice. It is purely for the political aggrandizement of the Bush administration, and a (lame) attempt to legitimize its actions in Iraq.
As are so many U.S. actions abroad, this “trial” is more about U.S. domestic politics than anything else. No doubt the Bushies are also hoping it will help their standing with the international community. They probably also think it will make Iraqis feel better about their bloody, destructive invasion and occupation of the country. The “trial” may or may not play well (or play at all) with the American public, but from what I can tell, Iraqis are not terribly impressed, and neither is most of the rest of the world.
Oh yes – and the choice to try, convict, and execute Saddam for this particular crime, which took place before the U.S. decided he was their best friend, is also not a coincidence. It will eliminate the possibility of trying him for even greater crimes whose details would be extremely embarrassing to the U.S. and other western countries.