IJCentral: International Justice Central

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…

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? 

“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.