IJCentral: International Justice Central

** I’m twittering the hearing at: http://twitter.com/bechamilton for those who can’t catch the live webcast**

There is a hearing at the ICC this morning which may seem to be on an obscure legal point to the general public, but is actually of significance to the global system of justice established by the Rome Statute.

The hearing concerns a challenge to the admissibility of the case against DRC warlord, Germain Katanga.

Charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and rape, were confirmed against Katanga by Pre-Trial Chamber I while I was at the court last year. His trial (jointly with Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui) is due to commence in September this year. However, in a motion filed in February, Katanga’s defense team (led by the impressive British barrister, David Hooper) are challenging whether the case against Katanga is admissible (re-stated in plain English: Does the ICC have the authority to hear this case or should his case be dealt with by the DRC’s judicial system?).

Under the system established by the Rome Statute, the ICC is a court of last resort. By design, the drafters of the Rome Statute decided that national judicial systems should have primacy, and only if these systems were unable or unwilling to conduct genuine investigations and prosecutions would the ICC come into play. In legal terms this is “the principle of complementarity.” In practical terms it means that the system established by the Rome Statute aims to encourage justice at the local level first - with justice being undertaken at the international legal only when the local system fails.

I personally think that complementarity it is a very positive design feature of the Rome Statute that is not nearly well enough understood by those who lump the ICC into the same category as the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia (which do not operate on the complementarity principle). As ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo put it when he came to office: “The efficiency of the International Criminal Court should not be measured by the number of cases that reach the court or by the content of its decisions. Quite on the contrary, because of the exceptional character of this institution, the absence of trials led by this court as a consequence of the regular functioning of national institutions, would be its major success.”

So why then is the Prosecution fighting the Defense on the admissibility of this case before the ICC?

In essence it comes down to a fight over the meaning of the word “case.”  In this morning’s hearing I expect we will see the Prosecution argue that the case against Katanga was not being investigated or prosecuted by the DRC, and they will do so using the definition of the word “case” that Pre-Trial Chamber I established several years ago in Lubanga - Namely that a case involves the same person and same conduct:  “. . . for a case arising from an investigation of a situation to be inadmissible, national proceedings must encompass both the person and the conduct which is the subject of the case before the court.” (Decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I, 24 Feb. 2006, para 37). Therefore, the fact that the DRC were investigating Katanaga is not, in and of itself, enough to make the case inadmissible. It would only be inadmissible if they were also investigating him for the same conduct as in the ICC case.

By contrast, the Defense has argued in its submissions that this interpretation of the word “case” is too narrow. They also argue that the DRC authorities would have started looking at the conduct the ICC is now looking at if the ICC had not begun its investigation.

My view, for what it’s worth, is that given the Chamber’s definition of the word “case” in Lubanga, the Prosecution’s argument is solid as a matter of law. (Moreover, with my cynics hat on I have to wonder what’s the likelihood that a panel of Judges deciding they no longer have the power to adjudicate a case that they have already confirmed the charges in??).  However Hooper rarely makes a vacuous argument, and there are some policy consequences flowing from the Chamber’s initial decision to define the word “case” as narrowly as they did in Lubanga that Hooper is the first to really draw the Court’s attention to.

In short - for anyone interested in the balance of local vs. international justice, this hearing is worth paying attention to. You can see it livestreamed through the Court’s site from 10am (Dutch time) this morning in English or French.

re-posted by IJCentral from Bec Hamilton

I urge you to read Justice Richard Goldstone’s wonderful and concise overview of the state of international justice, published on the Op-Ed page of today’s New York Times. It provides an encouraging assessment of the remarkable progress that has been made on the international justice front, a reminder that all the efforts to cultivate international respect for the rule of law, spearheaded by a “mature global network of human rights organizations”, are bearing fruit and reining in the culture of impunity enjoyed by the most powerful violators of human rights.  Perpetrators of mass atrocities used to living by the rule of force and negotiating amnesties and personal benefits in exchange for peace are finding out that that route to retirement is no longer open for them - Charles Taylor is a stark example.  And the arrogance of Fujimori’s ploy to return to Peru for a presidential run, even though he was a fugitive from justice, led to his landmark trial that ended in a conviction and 25-year sentence for human rights violations.

Justice Goldstone is right to remind us all about the progress made in the quest for a world where justice and human dignity prevail.  Human rights activists and concerned citizens, often feeling beleaguered and powerless in the face of myriad conflicts, unbridled violence, and oppressive regimes, need to see that if we persevere there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Justice Goldstone was just awarded the MacArthur Award for International Justice, a well deserved recognition of his incredible career and accomplishments in advancing international justice, a list too long to enumerate in this post.  Skylight Pictures made a short film that honors Justice Goldstone’s role in the creation of an effective international justice system - it was shown at the MacArthur-sponsored award ceremony in The Hague on May 25, and you can see it here.

Now we have to get down to the business of bringing accountability for the abuses of rule of law and human dignity perpetrated during the Bush administration - No One Above the Law! And that includes President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan…

Crime and justice are popular subjects for movies, but rarely are they portrayed in a more compelling way than in The Reckoning. There’s a simple reason why this documentary is so captivating: it is a story about real life and about history in the making.

The Reckoning, an Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival this year, follows the first six years of the International Criminal Court and takes the audience from the court’s headquarters in The Hague, to the scenes of the crimes – in eastern Congo and northern Uganda – to the United Nations headquarters in New York, where the court has met some of its loudest critics. One might not expect a story about judicial processes to be so action-packed, but The Reckoning has a captivating way of weaving together the strong personalities of individuals into a gripping narrative, such as a young Ugandan woman who survived a rampage by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, passionate judges inspired by the work of establishing standards for global justice, outspoken critics of the court, and a dynamic lead prosecutor who has become the face of the struggle to bring justice to victims in Darfur.

The director and producer of The Reckoning, Pamela Yates and Paco de Onis, recently came to town for the Washington, D.C., debut of the film, shown before a packed house at the E Street Cinema. Maggie and I caught up with them the next day to talk more about the making of the documentary, the obstacles the court has faced since its inception in 2002, and about what they hope to accomplish with their outreach efforts.

Screenings of The Reckoning have been taking place all over the country, and the next stops on the tour include Santa Barbara, New York, and Nantucket. Click here for details about these film festival appearances, and mark your calendar for July 14th, when The Reckoning will air on PBS’s independent film program, P.O.V. Conversations about the film and the international justice movement more broadly are taking place on IJCentral.org, film’s outreach hub, which features an interactive map that tracks what people around the world are saying on Twitter about international justice.

We’re keeping an eye on this film and the movement it is generating, so check this space for updates, including a blog post in the coming weeks from New York, where The Reckoning will be the featured film at the opening night of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.

-Posted by Laura Heaton and Maggie Fick @ Enough Project

Angelina Jolie’s visit to the Thomas Lubanga trial this week at the International Criminal Court made the celebrity gossip press yesterday and the twittersphere, as several tweets popped up on the International Criminal Court (ICC) feed on the IJCentral map.  With six children of her own, it’s good to see her using her celebrity power to bring much-needed attention to the crime of recruiting child soldiers.  Angelina is very committed to the ICC and its justice mandate, and is very informed about the Court and its activities.  Last year through the Jolie/Pitt Foundation she sponsored a day-long symposium at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, bringing together several luminaries of the international justice world to discuss U.S. policy toward the ICC.

There is actually a great latent interest in U.S. policy toward the ICC.  After every screening on the festival circuit of The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court the first question audiences ask is “What is Obama’s policy on the ICC?”  We’ve found that audiences come out of the film feeling energized and looking for a way to get involved with the international justice movement.  The national U.S. broadcast of The Reckoning on PBS on July 14 (on the P.O.V. series) will be the launching pad for No One Above the Law, a campaign to generate support for global rule of law, and reengage the U.S. with the international justice movement.

What was the UN Security Council (UNSC) thinking when it issued Resolution 1593 in 2005, referring the ongoing situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)?  Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo took the case, conducted a 20-month investigation, came back with evidence, and requested arrest warrants - he did his job, in accordance with the justice mandate of the ICC.  At briefings he has subsequently given every 6 months, he has updated the UNSC on the progress of the investigation.  After obtaining arrest warrants from the ICC judges for Sudanese government Minister Ahmad Haroun, Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, and President Omar al-Bashir, he has consistently urged the UNSC and the international community represented at the UN, to execute the warrants. Instead the UNSC has balked at following through, and the African Union and the Arab League have rallied to support al-Bashir. 

Now there is even the possibility that the Obama administration might consider appeasing al-Bashir, a disgraceful approach if it happens (I suspect that Obama’s desire for dialogue with Iran, with its ties to Sudan, would have something to do with a rapprochement with al-Bashir).  So what did the UNSC and the international community expect when they asked the Prosecutor to investigate?  Did they have any plan for what to do if he came back with evidence of crimes against humanity?  They don’t seem to have thought that far ahead, or simply issued Resolution 1593 for political expediency.  But now they must act - we as global citizens must pressure our leaders to uphold the rule of law.  If you live in the U.S., write to your congressperson and President Obama and let them know you want the ICC warrants to be acted upon!  And citizens around the world, IJCentral members, send an email to your Minister of Foreign Affairs urging them to support global rule of law!

At a recent post-screening discussion of documentary film “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court”, a Darfuri journalist said that amongst Darfuris, the surprise is not that the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President al-Bashir charging him with crimes against humanity in Darfur, or that al-Bashir expelled 13 humanitarian groups from the Darfur Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. The real surprise for Darfuris was that humanitarian organizations and the international community seemed taken by surprise by al-Bashir’s actions after the warrant was issued. As the Darfuri journalist, Tajeldin Abdalla Adam from Radio Dabanga said, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo publicly requested the warrants; al-Bashir publicly said he would retaliate; so why wasn’t the international community making preparations to respond to this and to preemptively pressure the Sudanese regime to curtail its actions? Al-Bashir and his National Congress Party have been at it for 20 years, presiding over the tragedy of southern Sudan (2 million victims), arming and giving safe haven to the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda (20,000 victims, 1.5 million displaced), and now Darfur (200,000 victims, over 2 million displaced). How long are we supposed to wait? It is time for the international community to definitively isolate President al-Bashir, and make it clear to any of his potential successors that the rogue state tactics of the National Congress Party regime will no longer be tolerated.

Accountability is not something a constituency should have to beg from its government.  A lack of transparency and a paper trail of secrets is not something that people who fight for their country and defend their democracy deserve. Alas, these types of abuses of power and abstractions of the law have become so commonplace over the last eight years that it’s hard to remember where we started and how we got into this mess.

With the recent release of the Bush administration terrorism memos we are beginning to learn first-hand what many Americans and people around the world suspected had terribly gone wrong with this manipulation of governance.  During the aftermath of (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) the Bush administration decided it would be a opportune moment enact a complete deconstruction of social liberties and give itself the type of impunity only sought after by the types of despots and dictators that the American government has long vowed to dethrone and displace. 

In 1998 we saw the indictment of Augusto Pinochet by the Spanish Magistrate Baltasar Garzón for crimes against humanity. On April 7, 2009 the world saw former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori found guilty of human right abuses and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Finally, on March 4th 2009 the ICC issued an unprecedented arrest warrant for sitting head of state Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir on counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Obviously there is a strong trend afoot in the international community to stop the egregious abuses of power and the murder of innocent civilian populations under the threat of war. We are witnessing a gradual acceptance of an international rule of law, but there is still much momentum to be built.  Not that there hasn’t been an acceptance since the Nuremberg trials as a result of World War II or after the signing of the Rome Statue, but I mean the active and engaged acceptance that brings crimes to the surface of public opinion and furthermore its criminals to court.

In March a Spanish court has moved forward into opening an official criminal investigation against top administration officials in the former Bush administration including former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former Justice Department Lawyer John C. Yoo for allegedly violating international law “by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba”.  This bold step is led by none other than Baltasar Garzón, and is a necessary beginning towards accountability for the United States. Although it may be unnecessary for the United States to have to export its alleged criminals, it does seem imminent that something must be done about them. The past eight years of American involvement in foreign and domestic politics has not only been an embarrassment but a potentially ruthless and criminal interpretation of the law and must not go unpunished.

Spain’s Attorney General has already encouraged Garzón to drop his investigation into the Bush administration and President Barack Obama has assured C.I.A. operatives involved in the torture described in the terrorism memo’s “that they would not be prosecuted for actions that their superiors told them were legal.”  Are the people of the United States going to step-up and make sure its leaders are accountable for their actions?  Are they going to vow against impunity and support a global rule of law? 

When Oprah signs up for Twitter, which she just has as reported by the NYTimes, does it make the service more valuable to the people using it or just more valuable as an instant broadcasting tool for micro-marketing?

Just last week there was so much excitement over the potential for a strong deployment of citizen journalism and political activism through the use of SMS text messaging.  Equally as strong, is a very active celebrity trend on Twitter.  Not only has Oprah just joined but celebs from the likes of Britney Spears to Al Gore are using the platform to send messages on a daily basis.  Ashton Kutcher made a race out of becoming the first person to have 1 million followers and has just crossed that mark after agreeing to appear on Oprah.  The molting period of any new technology can always be a stressful thing due to its nature to change so rapidly and the momentum that Twitter has been gaining is just that.  We must ask ourselves and wonder, will this be a digital revolution or another tech bubble burst?   

Oprah still has the potential to do something good with this service.  As is well known, she commands a large and very dedicated audience that is famous for instantly popularizing anything she endorses. Will Oprah take the right path and find ways to Tweet for good? 

It’s hard to overstate the reach of radio in Africa, and the potential that the medium holds for the defense of human rights.  And now with the spread of mobile phones and SMS text messaging throughout the continent, radio activists have found a happy marriage between the old and the new. Last week after one of the screenings of “The Reckoning” in The Hague Movies That Matter Festival, we had the pleasure of being on a panel with Tajeldin Abdalla Adam, or simply Taj, and he told us about Radio Dabanga, a short-wave radio station operating out of the city of Hilversum in Holland and broadcasting news to the Darfuri population in the Darfuri IDP camps of Sudan and the Darfuri refugee camps over the border in Chad.  They get news directly from the camps: people call or send SMS texts to Radio Dabanga and hang up, and then Radio Dabanga immediately calls them back so there is no additional expense for the caller.  This allows the Darfuri journalists at Radio Dabanga to get reports from the ground about what’s happening in the camps, and they corroborate the information with other people that are working with them within the camps and sending the information back using mobile phones, and then Radio Dabanga broadcasts the news to all the camps, where people gather to listen to the daily morning program.  Taj had an interesting take on the argument that the ICC warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have worsened the situation for Darfuris in the camps because the humanitarian relief organizations were thrown out by al-Bashir after the warrants for him were issued.  Taj feels that the humanitarian organizations and the international community should have seen it coming, and should have prepared for it.  Far from blaming the ICC for their deepening plight, Darfuris have the common sense to place the blame where it lies, in the person of Omar al-Bashir and his lethal state apparatus.  Taj confirmed a report we had heard that in Kalma, one of the larger IDP camps with 90,000 people, they are refusing any offers of food and water from the Sudanese government, fearing that the supplies would be poisoned.

When we were in the war ravaged town of Bunia, capital of the Ituri region of eastern Congo, filming for “The Reckoning”, we shot a scene with Richard Pituwa and Wanda Hall, who produce a program called “Interactive Radio for Justice”.  They broadcast information about the International Criminal Court (ICC), and respond to questions sent to them by SMS from listeners in the region.  Due to the fact that the 4 people now facing justice at the ICC in The Hague are all from the DR Congo, and 3 of them are from Ituri (Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga, and Mathieu Ngudjolo), this has created a great deal of local interest in the Court.  In one program that we filmed, Richard and Wanda had ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo on the line from The Hague, taking questions from listeners that were coming in as SMS text messages.  This marriage of radio and SMS is clearly a fantastic way to hear the voices and concerns of people who have had to endure the violence that continues to ravage central Africa, and to build local awareness and understanding of the international justice interventions that are affecting their lives.

There seems to be a growing trend for citizen journalism afoot in the blogosphere, and Twitter could be the avant garde for this movement.  Over the past several years, people have begun to turn to their mobile phones for more and more information. Mobile phones have become one of the most common items people carry in the world along with their keys and wallets.  This is an amazing statistic considering it spans across the globe and across economic divides.  From CEO’s of large corporations to nomadic Bedouin’s, the mobile phone has made itself the tool that can bridge the gap in universal communication. 

One of the most exciting movements that mobile phones have brought about has to do with anyone being able to report news on the ground first-hand.  With a simple text that is restricted to 140 characters, people have been reporting on such crises as the Mumbai terror attacks or the US Airways Hudson river plane crash.  Another trend in this movement is people using Twitter to organize and rally crowds for political protests.  This has been very recently applied in Moldova and was so successful that the government suspended cell phone and internet service temporarily to stop all of the information that was getting out about the political turmoil from the protesters.

Where this leaves us of course is with a lot of questions. Can this type of journalism become a new norm?  What are the potential drawbacks including the vetting of information?  Where do we go from here? 

Some of the years recent Twitter chatter:

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter
NYTimes 4.7.09:

A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.

The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.

Twittering the USAirways Plane Crash
WSJ Blogs 1.15.09:

Janis Krums, a guy with a camera and a penchant for social media tools, posted one of the first and most remarkable photos today of US Airways Flight 1549 after it crash-landed in the Hudson River.

“There’s a plane in the Hudson,” the Sarasota native wrote on the microblogging site Twitter just as reports began to break of the plane hitting the water off Manhattan’s west side. “I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

SF Activists Use Twitter to Coordinate War Protest
MarketingVOX 3.21.08:

To mark the fifth anniversary of the US occupation of Iraq, anti-war protesters in San Francisco used the micro-blogging service Twitter to coordinate their movements throughout the day.

Organizers typically use walkie-talkies and a bullhorn to coordinate protesters, but those carrying radios are usually the first to be arrested by the police.

“We haven’t waited 17 years to get justice…we’ve fought 17 years to get justice.”  This quote from Eduardo Gonzalez of the International Center for Transitional Justice is in reference to the victims and members of Peruvian civil society that have been struggling since 1992, without pause, to have Peru’s ex-President Alberto Fujimori face justice for the human rights violations perpetrated during his 10-year regime. We met Eduardo in 2002 when he was working with the Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Commission, and Pamela Yates and I were scouting to make “State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism”, the Skylight Pictures documentary about Peru’s 20-year “war on terror” with Shining Path, which covers the role that Fujimori played in gutting his country’s democracy in the name of security, committing the crimes that led to today’s guilty verdict and 25-year sentence.  Today is a big day for all Peruvians that want their country to be ruled by law, but Fujimori’s supporters will surely retaliate as they are a violent cohort.
It’s the first time a democratically elected Latin American president was found guilty in his own country of rights abuses, and Gisela Ortiz and Raida Condor (pictured here) deserve a lot of the credit for it, as they battled tirelessly for 17 years to see Fujimori face justice for ordering their brother and son killed in the La Cantuta massacre.  In Q&As for “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court” I often point to the example that Latin American civil society presents to the world: since the 60s and 70s, when the majority of the region was ruled by dictatorships, we have come to a present ruled by democracies.  It’s a remarkable achievement of what was considered to be an impossible task: namely, to have military leaders and politicians face justice for abuses committed against their own citizens.  To those who criticize the ICC arrest warrants charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and war crimes, saying that it will be a setback for peace, I say look at Latin America and the role that the rule of law played in the continent’s transformation to democracy.

This Just in!

OSI Fellow and author Bec Hamilton has just announced via Enough Project’s website that she will be giving people a unique opportunity to ask questions about Darfur Policy to the policy makers themselves. She is currently in The Hague and will be interviewing former U.N. Special Representative on Sudan Jan Pronk and current ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.  By submitting questions to her website you can have an opportunity to have your questions be answered on record.  Here is a bit of the post:

“Sitting talking with the former head of U.N. Peacekeeping in New York last week, it struck me that there are many citizen advocates out there who would relish the opportunity to quiz some of these people on Darfur policy, so I thought of one way to try and share the opportunity…

I recently set up a website where I will post upcoming interviews with people who are willing to take questions on the record from you. I’m in The Hague right now, and two of the people I have just spoken with agreed to take your questions: The former U.N. Special Representative on Sudan Jan Pronk and the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. If you would like to ask either of them a question about Darfur policy – past, present or future – go to the “Submit a Question” tab on the website.”

Take this opportunity and make yourself heard!

“The Reckoning” yesterday completed its 30-day tour of European Human Rights Film Festivals, including 3 screenings sponsored by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs in Zurich, Fribourg and Geneva.  It is always remarkable to experience a film with audiences, especially when the film is just coming out of the gate (the world premiere of “The Reckoning” was at the Sundance Film Festival 09 in January) where 6 full houses put the film in front of about 2,000 people.  During the European tour all 3 filmmakers (Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and myself) of “The Reckoning” we’re on hand for discussions and Q&As after the screenings, in Paris, Prague, London, Zurich, Fribourg, Geneva and The Hague.  It’s incredibly useful because you get a sense of how the film is working, what it is communicating to people who for the most part know little about the ICC, or have a narrow focus on one aspect of the international justice system.  Even many people who work at the ICC told us that until watching the film they hadn’t had a clear idea of how all the parts of the Court’s work came together in different parts of the world.  “The Reckoning” will be a great entry point for many, and with the follow through to IJCentral we hope to expand the global constituency for the ICC and international justice.

In The Hague premiere on April 3, a truly moving event with “The Reckoning” coming home in a sense, about 500 people packed the Spui Theater, and ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was on hand to answer questions and talk about the work he is doing in his mandate to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide to justice.  At one point he asked members of the audience to rise if they worked or had worked at the ICC, and more than half the audience got up, followed by the rest of the audience which gave them a standing ovation.  It was a beautiful moment.  It was truly refreshing to see this unabashed enthusiasm for the Court during these difficult times when the ICC’s credibility is being challenged by the Arab League and the African Union over the warrants of arrest that have been issued for Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. On top of that there are those critics who prefer to blame the Prosecutor for al-Bashir’s decision to expel humanitarian groups from Darfur’s Internally Displaced Persons camps, saying that ICC chose the wrong moment to issue arrest warrants.  Huh?  Nobody forced al-Bashir to ratchet up his criminal behavior by denying humanitarian aid to people he has forced into the camps in the first place, and it’s good to remember that Al-Bashir has been behaving like this for the twenty years since he took power in a military coup: he presided over the deaths of 2 million in the war with southern Sudan; in the 90s he armed and supplied and gave safe haven to the Lord’s Resistance Army so that they could keep on committing atrocities in northern Uganda; and for the past 6 years he has been attacking Darfur.  What would be a better time to issue an arrest warrant for a serial genocidaire like al-Bashir?

Here we are in The Hague, with the Dutch Premiere of “The Reckoning” coming this evening, opening the Camara Justitia section of the Movies That Matter/Amnesty International Film Festival.  The festival organizers are anticipating a sold-out screening at the beautiful Theater Spui.  We were there last night for the opening of the festival, where Princess Mabel of the Netherlands introduced our friend Gini Reticker and Sugars Cooper, and Gini’s great film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” in which Sugars appears as one of the group of Liberian women that used non-violent resistance to fight for peace in Liberia when it was under the rule of Charles Taylor.  There were also several mentions of “The Reckoning” by the Mayor of The Hague and Festival Director Taco, which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

It’s ironic that Taylor is now locked up here in The Hague on trial under the jurisdiction of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (the ICC has loaned them their courtroom for the trial since it was deemed too dangerous to hold it in Sierra Leone), and that one of the subjects in “The Reckoning”, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is also locked up here and on trial.  In fact, Pamela Yates and Peter Kinoy and I went to the ICC yesterday to see the trial of Lubanga in session.  It’s always sobering and satisfying to see the wheels of justice turning.  I was thinking that it would be good to have a screening of “The Reckoning” at Scheveningen prison here in The Hague, where Lubanga, Taylor, Katanga, Ngudjolo and Bemba are all in custody, hopefully soon to be joined by al-Bashir and Kony - a rough gallery of warlords and rogue leaders.

The potential for mobile technology to make waves and bring change to the ever-evolving fight for international justice is a crucial and fundamental philosophy that we here at IJCentral strongly believe in.  Since our inception we have always believed that what has made us different is our focus on global conversations through mobile phones. Currently we are using Twitter as our prototype platform here in the US and other participating countries. In the future we hope expand using such programs as FrontlineSMS to expand our network and put it in the hands of literally any user with a mobile phone in the world. This goal is an often exciting and humbling task.

We wanted to announce that IJCentral has been invited to present at this years UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge where 9 other groups will also be presenting ideas that will try to help evolve the application of mobile technology to Human Rights work around the world. It is very exciting to have been accepted and we would love to hear your thoughts on this.  Here is some info on the HRC conference:

“The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley is pleased to announce the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge.  Recent innovations in science and technology, especially mobile technologies, have provided human rights advocates, journalists, and scientists with new tools to expose war crimes and other serious violations of human rights and disseminate this information in real time throughout the world. Cell phones, combined with GPS, cameras, video, audio, and SMS are transforming the way the world understands and responds to emerging crises. Handheld data collection devices, such as PDAs, provide researchers with new ways of documenting mass violence and attitudes toward peace, justice, and social reconstruction in conflict zones.”

The Human Rights Center is sponsoring a challenge to encourage innovations for applying mobile technologies for human rights investigations and advocacy. Through a NetSquared Community vote, 10 finalists will be chosen. All 10 finalists will be invited to present their ideas at an international conference, “The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media,” at UC Berkeley, May 4 and 5, 2009. A panel of judges, selected by the Human Rights Center, will choose three winners, to be announced at the conference. Winners will receive cash awards of $15,000 (first place), $10,000 (second place), and $5,000 (third place) to implement their ideas.

Find more videos like this on Soul of the New Machine

It’s great to see the Twitter flurry that came up on IJCentral yesterday as a result of conflicting reports about al-Bashir’s visit to Sudan - Sudan Times reported he had sent his VP, Mahi, but other reports including the NY Times have conclusively shown that not only was al-Bashir in Doha, but he was warmly received by the other Arab leaders at the Arab League summit.  This is a shame, but also it’s easy to see why rallying around al-Bashir is a no-brainer for despotic Arab leaders, who may fear the ICC and can rally the ‘Arab street’ around the idea that justice is not being meted out equally, as there have been no sanctions for Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza, or Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006.  Of course any investigation into those conflicts would have to include all parties, not just Israel.

Getting back to Twitter, there are indications that Twitter might become available as a free service around the world again, if they can work out deals with mobile phone carriers.  This is how Twitter used to be when it started, and its power as a tool for human rights and international justice awareness would be mightily increased if that happens again.

These are tense days for supporters of the International Criminal Court.  We have to stand by and watch as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir flouts the arrest warrants issued for him by the ICC on March 4, charging him with crimes against humanity.  He has responded by expelling 13 international humanitarian groups from Sudan and shutting down 3 Sudanese humanitarian groups (apparently, according to a source who works coordinating relief organizations, Malaysian humanitarian groups are trying to fill the gap but don’t have the resources, neither logistical or financial). Then al-Bashir traveled to Eritrea, Egypt, Lybia and now to Qatar for the Arab League summit in Doha.

One of the main forces building against the ICC is the ‘Arab street’, because the perception that the ICC is targeting Africa and the Arab world, but not Israeli aggressions in Lebanon and Gaza, is gaining ground.  No matter that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israel and Lebanon and Gaza since they have not ratified the Rome Statute - neither is Sudan a member, and that fact is being used to advantage by enemies of the ICC.  They claim that there is a double standard being applied by the UN Security Council, because they will issue a UNSC resolution to ask that Sudan be investigated for the conflict in Darfur, but do not issue a resolution asking that the ICC investigate the Israel/Hezbollah/Hamas conflicts.  This is a powerful argument, let’s face it, and if the ‘Arab street’ and Arab leaders move to let war criminals like al-Bashir off the hook because of this perceived double-standard, I don’t see how it could be perceived as anything but a setback for the ICC and for hopes of getting more Arab countries to ratify the Rome Statute (the only Arab countries that have ratified are Jordan, Djibouti and Comoros).

I think it would be behoove the world community to have transgressions of international humanitarian law in the Middle East investigated, whether they are coming from Israel, Hezbollah or Hamas. To get such a resolution out of the UNSC is not likely.  It would undoubtedly require UNSC reform, which has a power structure that still reflects the victors of WWII - no member of the P5 (Permanent 5 members of the UNSC, who each have veto power to kill any resolution) should have the power to singlehandedly stop a UNSC resolution - this is a structure that’s become obsolete and needs to be reformed for the sake of UN credibility.

In the wake of the arrest warrants issued for his arrest by the ICC, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has predictably upped the ante in his defiance of international human rights norms by expelling several key humanitarian organizations from Darfur and seizing their assets - essential organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Crisis Group.  The Sudanese representative at the UN says there’s no turning back, and that the international community should be more concerned about the reversing the ICC warrants than with condemning Sudan. 

If the UN Security Council gives in to this sort of blackmail it will truly be a shameful day for humanity.  A serial genocidaire like al-Bashir has to face his day of reckoning at this point - enough is enough (during his 20-year regime 2 million died in a civil war with southern Sudan, he supplied arms and support for the Lord’s Resistance Army atrocities in Uganda, and now Darfur).  There are good signs from the Obama administration, as evinced by statements issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Representative Susan Rice, and Obama’s appointment of Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, a Swahili-speaking retired Air Force officer who grew up in Africa as the son of missionaries, to be Sepcial Envoy for Sudan.  According to reports even China seems to be balking at this latest outrage from al-Bashir.  I urge all IJCentral members to write to Susan Rice urging her to support the arrest warrants for al-Bashir and put this international pariah on trial.

Much hay has been made since the ICC announced the arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, about the fact that the warrants were issued for crimes against humanity (5 counts) and war crimes (2) but not for genocide, the third category of crime that Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had included in his request for the warrants on July 14, 2008.  Many people that I respect in the international justice field have seized on this decision by the ICC judges as if it represents some kind of a failure for the Prosecutor because they thought he should not have accused al-Bashir with genocide in the first place, or because they thought it was too controversial, or are disappointed that the judges decided against issuing a warrant for genocide.  Aren’t these critics satisfied with crimes against humanity and war crimes?  Here’s the definition of crimes against humanity from the Rome Statue, the founding document of the ICC:

“Particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion.”

Whatever the reasons, it really feels like splitting hairs, or finding the negative in what I see as huge positive step forward for humankind.  We finally have a Court that is capable of issuing arrest warrants for a sitting head of state - that’s amazing.  As former ICC Senior Trial Attorney says in the film “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court”, the Sudan/Darfur case is the kind of case the Court was made for, to hold leaders of countries to account when they commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  As the Prosecutor said at the press conference last week announcing the warrants, the judges considered his requests and decided not to issue the warrant for genocide - this shows a well functioning and independent court, where the judges don’t simply rubber stamp what the Prosecutor gives them.  One of the judges had a dissenting opinion, but the other two decided against - the Prosecutor said he would review their arguments against and perhaps file an appeal.  So let’s focus on the positive aspects of what the ICC is doing, and provide constructive criticism when appropriate.

A genocide charge may not be hanging over al-Bashir’s head at the moment, but crimes against humanity and war crimes are, and let’s focus on that.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s reaction to the arrest warrants issued for him by the ICC is telling: nothing in the 20 years he’s been ruling Sudan has grabbed his attention like these warrants charging him with crimes against humanity and war crimes.  He has spouted creative insults: “USA, UK and France are the dirt beneath my shoes” and his intelligence chief Salah Gosh has called for the “amputation of the hands and the slitting of the throats of any person who dares bad-mouth al-Bashir or support” the ICC charges against him.  Al-Bashir’s regime has ordered the expulsion and seized assets of 10 humanitarian organizations including Doctors Without Borders.  He has organized public rallies to show support for him and anger at the ICC, with placards that depict Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo with pig ears. 

All this bluster and bragadoccio against the ICC and the US, UK and France (the 3 members of the UN Security Council that insist that the warrants be upheld) indicates that al-Bashir really is worried.  The Steve Earle song “Way Down in the Hole” that played over the closing credits of The Wire keeps coming to mind.  Al-Bashir is only digging his hole deeper every time he lashes out.  How will the French government react to the expulsion of Doctors Without Borders?  After all, Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of DWB, is now the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Al-Bashir can’t fly out of the country any longer without worrying about his plane being diverted, even if other African countries like Ethiopia have said they won’t honor the warrant, there may be a surprise at 30,000 feet one of these days.  The Court is permanent, and that will be al-Bashir’s bane from here forward.  If the crisis worsens in Darfur due to lack of humanitarian support, how will Sudan look to the world?  How long will al-Bashir find support at home if Sudan becomes ever more an international pariah?  Will China continue to back al-Bashir?  The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, supports the Court’s action to “hold accountable those who are responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur.”

President Omar Al-Bashir: Took power in a coup in 1989 - harbored Osama bin Laden - presided over civil war with southern Sudan, 2 million dead - presides over destruction of Darfur, 200,000 dead, 2.5 million displaced and dying - accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC - WANTED - going “Way Down in the Hole”...

It is very encouraging to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu in today’s New York Times denounce the argument by many African leaders that the International Criminal Court (ICC) cases are unfairly targeting Africans.  Archbishop Tutu’s call for justice for the victims is forceful and morally unassailable - as he says: “Are [African leaders] on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice is clear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.” and also “Justice is in the interest of victims, and the victims of these crimes are African. To imply that the prosecution is a plot by the West is demeaning to Africans and understates the commitment to justice we have seen across the continent.”

It’s refreshing to hear this unambiguous call for justice as we await tomorrow’s decision by the ICC judges on the issuance of an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, very likely charging him with crimes against humanity and war crimes.  Even if he doesn’t get charged with genocide, the other two charges are more than enough.

How is it possible that the international community continues to allow the LRA to perpetrate atrocities with impunity?  In today’s article by Jeffrey Gettleman in the New York Times, he describes the horrific violence inflicted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on villagers in the northeastern corner of the Congo, around Garamba National Park where the LRA has been hiding for the past few years.  Since last December the LRA has been rampaging, pillaging, raping, maiming, kidnapping and killing these innocent villagers, in retaliation for a botched military offensive against them by the Ugandan and Congolese armies (with U.S. advisers involved) after peace negotiations failed.  These poor villagers don’t even understand the LRA rebels who are mostly from northern Uganda and speak Acholi, not the local language Lingala.  So they emerge from the bush, armed to the teeth and speaking a strange language, and proceed to massacre the unfortunate civilians - can you even begin to imagine such a nightmare?  Is it possible that we, the international community, are incapable of bringing the LRA to its knees?  This is shameful and tragic.  Where are the LRA getting their guns, their bullets?  They may extract food from the villagers, but not bullets and grenades to replenish their arsenal.  Who pays for their satellite phone accounts?  Where is the cash support flowing from?  Are we really expected to believe that this information is unattainable?  Can’t the satellite phone carriers shut down the LRA accounts, or use the phones to trace their movements?  Whomever is aiding and abetting them on the outside must be immediately arrested and prosecuted.  If the U.S. was advising the Ugandan and Congolese forces, why can’t the ultra-sophisticated global intelligence system created to track potential terrorists, with satellites that can detect movements and heat emissions under the jungle canopy, be brought to bear on the LRA?  If the international community doesn’t pull out all the stops now to bring this escalating horror to an end, we will have failed miserably - we already have failed the 1,000 victims of the latest LRA rampage.  I commend Jeffrey Gettleman for making this ongoing story a priority, and our response has to be to end the story (nightmare).

I am troubled by a persistent current of thought regarding ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s call for the arrest of the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  Judges at the ICC are currently considering whether to issue the warrants, and based on leaked information that was published in the Washington Post (now taken down from their website after the ICC Public Information Office denied that warrants had been issued), I suspect that the judges will issue warrants charging al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not genocide.  In any case, those who say that the warrants for al-Bashir should be suspended or retracted if they are issued are putting forth the worn-out argument that the international community is treading on thin ice and may provoke a violent backlash from al-Bashir, thereby derailing the peace process in Sudan (What peace process? Can they be serious?).  A good example of this is an article from the Guardian UK by Paul Adrian Raymond, quoting Alex De Waal of course, saying that al-Bashir will lash out, that Africa will retreat from international justice and become a “universal jurisdiction free zone”.  These arguments claiming that justice is an idealistic folly of human rights advocates are on the wrong side of history.  I was raised in Latin America in a time when dictators ruled and they were considered untouchable.  But civil society persevered, often mocked for their “futile efforts”, and now 30 years later, lo and behold, generals went to prison, dictators were put on trial, and Latin America is practically a dictator-free zone.  Justice played a crucial role in this transformation, and the establishment of the rule of law has become a given in most Latin American societies - witness the ongoing trial of ex-President Alberto Fujimori of Peru, now in the dock facing charges of human rights violations in his own country.  I think that eventually the rule of law will prevail in Africa as well, and if the ICC helps it get there, it will be fulfilling its justice mandate.  I don’t buy the Alex De Waal argument - I think that the majority of Africans want the rule of law to prevail, regardless of what their leaders may say.  Power doesn’t like limits, and the ICC is a threat to those who would prefer to operate with impunity, but I think that the impunity gap will be closed.  And as ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says, “Africa is at the vanguard of international justice”.  Africa is the continent with the highest number of countries that are members of the ICC, and it’s good to remember that Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo did not initiate the ICC cases in Africa - Uganda, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic are all ICC member states, and they referred themselves to the ICC, and the Sudan/Darfur case was referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council.  So these charges that the Prosecutor has targeted Africa have no foundation - these conflicts in Africa are real, and accountability must be pursued or there will never be peace.

A sad farewell to exemplary human rights defender, activist, author of the definitive tome on the Rwandan genocide, and international justice advocate Alison Des Forges, who died in the Continental plane crash in Buffalo on February 12.  She was an extraordinary and dedicated person, with profound insights on the human condition.  We had the privilege of crossing paths with her several times during the making of The Reckoning, and she will be sorely missed by all.  Read more on her life in the NY Times obituary - she will live on in our hearts and her life will always be an inspiration to present and future human rights defenders.

It’s high time to make a concerted and sustained international military intervention to capture Joseph Kony and bring the nightmare of his crazed militia group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to an end.  Today’s story in the New York Times, describing the atrocities inflicted on the peaceful rural people of the remote northeastern corner of the Congo, in and around Garamba National Park, is truly a horror story of innocent civilians being hacked to death and babies’ heads being torn off.  I hope no one is still talking about lifting the ICC warrants for the arrest of Kony and his top leaders.  It’s good that the US military has chosen to contribute tactical advice and information, as reported in the NY Times story, to help the Ugandan forces in their effort to rout and apprehend Kony, but the hapless Ugandan army will need more than advice and information to get the job done.  Even the “Kaibiles”, Guatemalan special forces sent after the LRA by the UN a couple of years ago, were decimated by Kony’s forces - let’s stop underestimating the LRA and send out some serious troop numbers, like the UN peacekeeping force sent into East Timor in 1999, to end his reign of terror once and for all, restore peace and stability, and put Kony on trial for war crimes at the ICC.

The balance between the people and the state has always been precarious, a see-saw between our collective needs that can only be guaranteed by a strong, mature state, and our sacred right to live our lives the way we see fit, and most importantly to control and alter the state that governs in our name – “we the people.”

Remember when you were a kid on that playground see-saw, and you partner, a little heavier than you, was able to keep you up in the air before pushing off to set the ride in motion once more – and remember the times when the trust was broken and your partner jumped off, letting you drop with an ass thumping jolt?

“We the people” are about to be dropped onto our collective ass by the highest court in the land.  The “Roberts court” is on the verge of reversing basic constitutional protections, in place for almost 100 years – the 4th Amendment right to be secure from tyrannical search, seizure, and false arrest.

In 1914, in a case called Weeks v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained through unconstitutional search & seizure could not be used in court; it would be considered the poisoned fruit of the poisonous tree of police misconduct.  Throughout the years this ruling has been strengthened.  In 1961 the Warren court in Mapp v. Ohio ruled that the exclusionary rule applied to all state trials.  The strengthening of these rulings has been a powerful check on City, State, and Federal police agencies from overstepping their mandates and abusing their power. 

Now Chief Justice Roberts with a 5-4 conservative majority wants to erase this “exclusionary” protection. The first blow has been struck in a decision handed down in Herring v. United States, this January. In a recent NY Times article Adam Liptak discusses the case and clearly illuminates the dangers we face. 

In the US we have a truly robust judicial system, and we are guided by a rule-of-law.  But this rule-of-law must never be taken for granted.  Unless we are vigilant, and defend our civil liberties at home, our protests over abuses abroad will be marred with the stain of hypocrisy.