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UNITED NATIONS, April 11: The dream of creating a permanent court to try the world’s most heinous crimes on Thursday became a reality, hailed by many as a landmark human rights achievement, but scorned by the United States.
At a morning ceremony at UN headquarters, 10 countries brought the total number of countries to ratify a Rome treaty establishing the International Criminal Court to 66 — six more than needed to bring the treaty into force on July 1.
The 10 nations — Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Ireland, Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania and Slovakia — deposited their papers all at the same time so the honour of being the 60th state does not go only to one country.
The tribunal is expected to go into operation next year in The Hague, Netherlands, a belated effort to fulfill the promise of the Nuremberg trials 56 years ago, when Nazi leaders were prosecuted for new categories of war crimes against humanity.
“It is an extremely significant moment in world history, the achievement of this court,” said David Scheffer, the former ambassador at large for war crimes who led US negotiations for the court under the Clinton administration.
The new tribunal has jurisdiction only when countries are unwilling or unable to to prosecute individuals for the world’s most serious atrocities: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other gross human rights abuses.
Cases can be referred by a country that has ratified the treaty, the U.N. Security Council or the tribunal’s prosecutor after approval from three judges. But the court is not retroactive and cannot probe crimes committed before July 1.
In a rebuff to its European allies, a major force behind the court, the Bush administration rejected the entire concept of a permanent international war crimes tribunal.
And it is considering withdrawing former President Bill Clinton’s signature from the Rome treaty, even though Clinton did not submit it to Congress for ratification, fearing US soldiers abroad would be subjected to frivolous prosecutions.
‘CAMPAIGN OF DISINFORMATION’: Republican Congressmen have introduced a smattering of retaliatory legislation, ranging from forbidding any US contact with the court and punishing those ratifying the treaty to using force to free any American brought to The Hague.
Israel’s former Labour government followed Clinton in signing the treaty but has not ratified it. Neither has any Arab nation, with the exception of Jordan.
To supporters of the court, most Americans know little about it, leaving its opponents to spread the news.
“It is much easier to conduct a campaign of disinformation about an institution that does not yet exist,” said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch. “One can then pour into this court nightmarish scenarios to touch chauvinistic cords.”
Still, when the statute for the court was approved in Rome in June 1998, diplomats believed it would take between 10 and 20 years to ratify, said Phillipe Kirsch, the Canadian head of the court’s preparatory commission.
The impetus to establish the court came after the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The UN Security Council has established temporary or ad hoc tribunals to try individuals for atrocities committed.
“Those two back-to-back genocides were the engine that has driven this process as fast as it has,” Dicker said. “It is a tribute to the victims.”
Wars have changed in the last 50 years, with civilians increasingly becoming the main target. Some 86 million men, women and children died in 250 conflicts around the world, according to the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, an umbrella group of 1,000 organizations.
During that period, more than 170 million people were stripped of their rights, property and dignity. “Most of these victims have been simply forgotten and few perpetrators have been brought to justice,” the coalition said.—Reuters
