Justice for dictators: History rules-The Economist
A verdict is imminent in the case of Charles Taylor, pictured below, the first former head of state to be judged by an international court since the Nuremberg trials.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Justice-for-dic...
In this article The Economist reviews the role of the International Criminal Court(ICC) since its creation in 2002. On 26 April the UN backed special court foàr Sierra Leone will make judicial history when it gives its verdict on former Liberian Charles taylor.He is accused of supporting the savage decade long civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990's providing weapons in exchange for "blood diamonds".Six of the rebel leaders involved havealready been convicted and sentenced to between 25 and 52 years.Child soldiers and appalling amputations which horrified the world. Liberia itself had suffered years of brutal conflict.
6The verdict will be an historic landmark. The law allows no time limits for crimes against humanity committed by dictators and it may give some pause for though.Especially The Economist notes, in Africa where so many atrocities have and are still being committed.
It points out that for years the only head of state to be convicted by a head of state was Karl Doenitz who briefly took over from Hitler in 1945. The Nuremberg trials were important because the evidence including film shot in the concentration camps revealed such depths of cruelty and evil that the courts committed many being tried to hang.Goering argued that it was victor's justice but this missed the point.
The court decided that such acts were literally unpardonable. A standard was set. It was of course known that Russia's Gulags were also killing people in barbaric conditions.Nuremberg was not perfect but it marked a genuine attempt to bring the perpatrators to justice for crimes against humanity. It set a standard.
In the past 13 years international courts have prosecuted five heads of state, four of them African. None of these prosecutions has so far resulted in a verdict. Slobodan Milosevic, president of the former Yugoslavia,died in 2006 during his trial. Rebels killed Moamer Gadaffi four months after the ICC that those who had suffered so much for so long wanted retribution.Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d’Ivoire, is due to go on trial in June after his transfer last November to The Hague.Hissène Habré, Chad’s former tyrannical ruler,may at last be called to account 22 years after fleeing into exile in Senegal.
Other countries have put their leaders on trial, but not before international tribunals. Iraq executed Saddam
Hussein in 2006. Egypt is trying its leader of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali fled Tunisia for shelter in Saudi
Arabia. Rawanda's trials for its ethnic killings continue and Cambodia is tried and convictedsome of its prison
camp commandants after many years.
The Economist remarks that it is still rare for African countries to put their rulers in the dock—perhaps because incumbents fear creating an unwanted precedent if and when their turn comes.Ther task has fallen to the ICC
as a court of last resort.Its statutes say that it can only prosecute atrocities when countries are unwilling or unable to do so.Cases must be referred to it either by a member state in which the alleged crimes have taken place or,
in the case of non-members, by the UN Security Council. The chief prosecutor may open an investigation on his own initiative,but only after approval by the court’s judges. It is not allowed to investigate crimes committed before it was set up in 2002 , such as Rwanda.
Some critics of the 121 member countries say that ICC is to pro western and anti African. There have been many complaints from African commentators others say it does not have sufficient powers.Until it found Thomas Lubango Dyilo, a Congolese warlord, guilty it did not have a single convicition to its credit.All seven countries being investigated four of them are African but Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Côte d’Ivoire—specifically asked the ICC to intervene,whereas in the case of Sudan and Libya the UN Security Council requested the ICC to take action.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo only initiated an investigation himself in the case of post election violence in Kenya.
With 33 ICC members Africa forms the largest regional block and Five of the 18 ICC judges are African but the African Union (AU) has aske its 54 members not to cooperate with the ICC and wants the UN Security Council to defer or abandon its cases against President Omar Bashir of Sudan and in Kenya.
The AU says it should prosecute its own tyrants but that requires functioning courts which The Economist says art a rarity on the African Continent.It points out that the AU’s own African Court of Justice a and Human and People’s Rights has made almost no progress.
the ICC presses ahead. As well as Mr Lubango, three more Congolese are in The Hague awaiting trial. Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former Congolese vice-president accused of mass atrocities a decade ago in the Central African Republic, has been on trial for the past 17 months. Mr Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire’s former president, is expected to be joined in his cell block soon by other Ivorian suspects who are still being investigated.
Delays in prosecution have involved Sudan,Kenya and Uganda with Joseph Kony the leader of the Lords Resistance Army and others being on the run for several years.Libya is denying the ICC's right to try Said ul- Islam who they say will be tried in Libya shortly and Gadaffi's spy chief Abdullah al-Senoussi who has yet to be extradited from Mauritania, although the ICC may be allowed to take part in a domestic trial.Libya has been unable to persuade Niger and Algeria to extradite Gadaffi family membersas Libyan militias have detained some 8,000 former Gadaffi supporters in illegal prisons tourting them and killing some according to international aid and human rights organisations.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo,the ICC's prosecutor who is standing down says of his record "mission accomplished" or perhaps one might say partly accomplished.For there is no separate African justce, Justice has to be seen as universal and the ICC is not there yet despite the persistant efforts of its prosecutor.In June he will be replaced by his deputy Fatou Bensouda, a former Gambian justice minister who may be more acceptable to the AU but there can be no compromise with judicial principles and with Omar Bashir threatening war and the devestation in the Sahel the inhuman killing will carry on as it always has. Judicialsanction maybe the only defence the world has.
6The verdict will be an historic landmark. The law allows no time limits for crimes against humanity committed by dictators and it may give some pause for though.Especially The Economist notes, in Africa where so many atrocities have and are still being committed.
It points out that for years the only head of state to be convicted by a head of state was Karl Doenitz who briefly took over from Hitler in 1945. The Nuremberg trials were important because the evidence including film shot in the concentration camps revealed such depths of cruelty and evil that the courts committed many being tried to hang.Goering argued that it was victor's justice but this missed the point.
The court decided that such acts were literally unpardonable. A standard was set. It was of course known that Russia's Gulags were also killing people in barbaric conditions.Nuremberg was not perfect but it marked a genuine attempt to bring the perpatrators to justice for crimes against humanity. It set a standard.
In the past 13 years international courts have prosecuted five heads of state, four of them African. None of these prosecutions has so far resulted in a verdict. Slobodan Milosevic, president of the former Yugoslavia,died in 2006 during his trial. Rebels killed Moamer Gadaffi four months after the ICC that those who had suffered so much for so long wanted retribution.Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d’Ivoire, is due to go on trial in June after his transfer last November to The Hague.Hissène Habré, Chad’s former tyrannical ruler,may at last be called to account 22 years after fleeing into exile in Senegal.
Other countries have put their leaders on trial, but not before international tribunals. Iraq executed Saddam
Hussein in 2006. Egypt is trying its leader of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali fled Tunisia for shelter in Saudi
Arabia. Rawanda's trials for its ethnic killings continue and Cambodia is tried and convictedsome of its prison
camp commandants after many years.
The Economist remarks that it is still rare for African countries to put their rulers in the dock—perhaps because incumbents fear creating an unwanted precedent if and when their turn comes.Ther task has fallen to the ICC
as a court of last resort.Its statutes say that it can only prosecute atrocities when countries are unwilling or unable to do so.Cases must be referred to it either by a member state in which the alleged crimes have taken place or,
in the case of non-members, by the UN Security Council. The chief prosecutor may open an investigation on his own initiative,but only after approval by the court’s judges. It is not allowed to investigate crimes committed before it was set up in 2002 , such as Rwanda.
Some critics of the 121 member countries say that ICC is to pro western and anti African. There have been many complaints from African commentators others say it does not have sufficient powers.Until it found Thomas Lubango Dyilo, a Congolese warlord, guilty it did not have a single convicition to its credit.All seven countries being investigated four of them are African but Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Côte d’Ivoire—specifically asked the ICC to intervene,whereas in the case of Sudan and Libya the UN Security Council requested the ICC to take action.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo only initiated an investigation himself in the case of post election violence in Kenya.
With 33 ICC members Africa forms the largest regional block and Five of the 18 ICC judges are African but the African Union (AU) has aske its 54 members not to cooperate with the ICC and wants the UN Security Council to defer or abandon its cases against President Omar Bashir of Sudan and in Kenya.
The AU says it should prosecute its own tyrants but that requires functioning courts which The Economist says art a rarity on the African Continent.It points out that the AU’s own African Court of Justice a and Human and People’s Rights has made almost no progress.
the ICC presses ahead. As well as Mr Lubango, three more Congolese are in The Hague awaiting trial. Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former Congolese vice-president accused of mass atrocities a decade ago in the Central African Republic, has been on trial for the past 17 months. Mr Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire’s former president, is expected to be joined in his cell block soon by other Ivorian suspects who are still being investigated.
Delays in prosecution have involved Sudan,Kenya and Uganda with Joseph Kony the leader of the Lords Resistance Army and others being on the run for several years.Libya is denying the ICC's right to try Said ul- Islam who they say will be tried in Libya shortly and Gadaffi's spy chief Abdullah al-Senoussi who has yet to be extradited from Mauritania, although the ICC may be allowed to take part in a domestic trial.Libya has been unable to persuade Niger and Algeria to extradite Gadaffi family membersas Libyan militias have detained some 8,000 former Gadaffi supporters in illegal prisons tourting them and killing some according to international aid and human rights organisations.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo,the ICC's prosecutor who is standing down says of his record "mission accomplished" or perhaps one might say partly accomplished.For there is no separate African justce, Justice has to be seen as universal and the ICC is not there yet despite the persistant efforts of its prosecutor.In June he will be replaced by his deputy Fatou Bensouda, a former Gambian justice minister who may be more acceptable to the AU but there can be no compromise with judicial principles and with Omar Bashir threatening war and the devestation in the Sahel the inhuman killing will carry on as it always has. Judicialsanction maybe the only defence the world has.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Justice-for-dic...