IJCentral: International Justice Central

June 12 (Reuters) - Member states at a Kampala review conference of the International Criminal Court have agreed on how the court could investigate crimes of state aggression, such as an invasion or an attack on another nation.

Below are questions and answers on the move and what it means for the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes court.

HOW IS SUCH A CRIME DEFINED?

The crime of aggression was included in the 1998 Rome Statute which set up the court, listing aggression crimes along with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as one of the four grave crimes the ICC has jurisdiction over.

It is broadly defined as the use of force that manifestly breaches the United Nations charter and includes an invasion, a bombardment, port blockade or a country allowing a state to use its territory to attack a third nation.

WHAT WAS DECIDED?

Delegates decided that the Security Council, the ICC and states should all have a role in deciding whether an investigation into an act of aggression should take place.

But the compromise deal gives the court at least seven years before it would gain the authority to prosecute the crime of waging an aggressive war and it depends on further agreement between ICC member states before taking effect.

That agreement cannot take place before January 1, 2017.

WHAT ARE THE DRAWBACKS?

Allowing the ICC to prosecute state aggression risks involving the court in political disputes between states because a decision to go to war can be an inherently political decision.

Observers also say allowing ICC jurisdiction over aggression could arm critics who say the court is a political jurisdiction.

The United States, which is not a member of the court, is also wary its troops could be prosecuted for the use of force in trying to end war crimes the ICC is mandated to prosecute.

It has argued that there are uncertainties and ambiguities in the definition of the crime of aggression and that judges would find it difficult to reach a ruling.

Japan warned that the deal amending the Rome Statute that set up the court is based on a “dubious legal foundation” and raised concerns non-member states are shielded from being investigated.

Some critics say the court is too young to take on the political risks as it is still trying to fully establish itself.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

The deal gives a limited extension to the court’s reach by allowing it to prosecute the crime of waging an aggressive war.

Proponents said the deal avoided giving control to the U.N. Security Council over the court’s authority in respect to aggression crimes after earlier warning that giving the council control over such probes could reduce the court’s independence.

The deal also gives the court at least seven years to strengthen itself and prepare for its new powers.

Observers say the crime of aggression is based on well-established international law and if the ICC had the power to prosecute aggression this could serve as a strong deterrent.

Enabling the ICC to investigate aggression could benefit both powerful and weaker states by affording better protection against one state from being invaded while protecting a powerful state from being turned into an aggressor by criminal leaders.

While the court has the powers to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, some observers say the court is incomplete if it does not have the jurisdiction to proseute state aggression, which often leads to war crimes.

HOW WOULD INVESTIGATIONS BE TRIGGERED?

The agreement stipulates that the U.N. Security Council would have first say in whether an investigation into an act of aggression should take place.

Other options at the Kampala conference for triggering an investigation had initially included a vote of the U.N. General Assembly, a ruling at the International Court of Justice in The Hague or a ruling handed down by ICC judges.

Eventually, delegates decided that either the Security Council, the ICC or state referral would have the power to trigger a probe.

WHAT NOW?

Member states will need to decide after January 1, 2017 on the entering into force of the court’s new jurisdiction.

But state parties can also “opt-out” of allowing the ICC to have jurisdiction by lodging a declaration with the court. States that opt-out must reconsider the declaration.

Source: Reuters
(Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

March 17, 2010 (JUBA) – The Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are planning to carry out attacks in Southern Sudan during the April elections, says the spokesman of the Southern Sudan army.

Maj. Gen. Kuol Deim Kuol said the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has confirmed that LRA has planned for massive attacks in Western Equatoria state and Greater Bahr el Ghazal region to coincide with the elections in the region.

Speaking to the UN-sponsored Miraya FM radio based in Juba, Kuol accused the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) of supporting the LRA to destabilize Southern Sudan.

He said the SPLA forces are ready to repel such attacks and provide security to the people during the elections.

Kuol also echoed the recent statement by the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni that LRA forces are based in Darfur region.

He added that LRA forces have already been spotted in areas of Western Bahr el Ghazal state in their preparation for the attacks.

Earlier Sudan Armed Forces denied the claim that the LRA forces are based in Darfur, describing it as “baseless.”

LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, had been supported by SAF during the war time and his forces were established or roaming in the three states of Eastern, Central and Western Equatoria before the signing of the CPA that ended the North-South civil war in 2005.

In 2006, the Government of Southern Sudan and Uganda agreed on the initiative to talk peace with the rebels in an effort to end the more than twenty years of conflict which began in 1986.

After two years of successful Southern Sudan-mediated talks in Juba that resulted to relative peace in northern Uganda, nearly two million people displaced by the conflict in northern Uganda were able to leave IDP camps and returned to their villages.

However, after concluding the talks by signing several protocols between Uganda government and the rebels including the timetable for implementation of the agreement, Joseph Kony in the last minute refused to sign the compiled Final Peace Agreement document with President Museveni, citing ICC’s arrest warrant for his indictment as an obstacle.

Southern Sudan’s Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar, who was the Chief Mediator in the negotiations between the two parties had to shuttle between Juba and Sudan-DR Congo border looking for Joseph Kony in the wild jungles of thick forests in that region to find him for face-to-face talks in order to convince him to sign, but to no avail.

Kony has since then instead continued with the cross-border international rebellion which affects Southern Sudan, DR Congo, Central Africa Republic and the native country, Uganda.

source: Sudan Tribune

An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people died under his brutal reign of terror. Justice was never served. 80,000 of the country’s minority, named “bloodsuckers” by the tyrant, were expelled with 90 days to flee their property and possessions. Justice was never served. No, this is not al-Bashir’s Sudan. This is Uganda, and at the helm of hell was military dictator and President Idi Amin, who died in exile on Saudi Arabian soil in 2003. Following his 8 years as ruler of Uganda in the 1970s, Idi Amin spent 24 years unpunished, living seaside in the Kingdom. The rivers of justice ran dry as the former President soaked up the sun for more than two decades.

Back then, a system of justice that was unrestrained by geographical borders was merely an armchair exercise in intellectual idealism. Today, that very system is now permanent, global, and on the front lines of the justice business, gradually giving a resounding voice to the victims of the world’s gravest crimes. Much of the conversation surrounding international criminal justice focuses on the capacity, credibility, and complexity of the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, the system of international criminal justice depends on a much larger framework of international institutions, nation states, non-governmental organizations, regional courts, international law enforcement bodies, and new entities working toward the control of violence, the promotion of lasting security, and the manifestation of justice for the world’s gravest crimes.

We simply cannot let this newly minted system of accountability slip through the cracks of politics as usual or skepticism and doubt. If we do, the moral stride of humanity will have taken one step back, rather than two steps forward. And while this new global system of justice cannot call Idi Amin to account for the litany of crimes he committed, including the expulsion of my mother and father from Uganda in 1972, the mere presence and pursuit of this international structure is touching the lives of many millions of people around the world affected by those engaged in truly heinous crimes.

The Consultative Conference on International Criminal Justice could not come at a more critical moment on the continuum of ending impunity and global cooperation in addressing mass atrocities. Convened by the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University and sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, members of the Steering Committee also include the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the International Center for Transitional Justice. The 3-day conference hosted at the United Nations Headquarters September 9-11 is bringing together 150 high-level participants including the world’s international justice experts, diplomats, scholars, jurists, and civil society actors to openly consult and better align strategies for the next three years. Landmark in nature, this is the first effort of its kind to strengthen the global system of international criminal justice.

Currently, there are four active investigations before the ICC, each with outstanding arrest warrants: Uganda; the Democratic Republic of Congo; Darfur, Sudan; and the Central African Republic. In addition, the Court also has several situations under analysis, including Colombia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Entrenched within these investigations, discussions and debates run the threads of local justice versus international justice, enforcement politics and State obligations, perceived biases towards the African continent, and last but not least, the complex relationship between the humanitarian community and the International Criminal Court.

With a number of outstanding arrest warrants and many more countries on the cusp of becoming active ICC investigations, the system of international criminal justice is at a crossroads and in need of stronger alignment amongst its actors. The time is now to understand and continue building a synergistic system that guides the agendas of many towards common goals.

At this defining moment, The Consultative Conference on International Criminal Justice aims to address these issues from the multitude of angles through which international criminal justice is perceived, strengthened, and dependent upon. Presenters include the Prosecutor, Registrar, and President of the International Criminal Court; Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (‘94-‘96); Ambassadors of Mexico, Kenya and Tanzania to the United Nations; Commissioners of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights; Executive Director of Human Rights Watch; President and CEO of Save the Children; President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia; and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Minister of Justice, among many others.

Crediting Canada with saving their lives, my parents had faith that such forced resettlement from Uganda would ultimately bear its fruit one day. “This was a blessing in disguise,” my father said, examining the last 37 years. Others were not so lucky.

Back then, we could rationalize injustice and inaction by the international community because we lacked a common framework, permanent global institutions, and other enabling tools to save the world’s most vulnerable populations. Today, these ideas are being put into practice, testing the will of humanity to fight for justice. Let us not fail this test, for if we fail, this article will be reprinted with only a handful of words changed—the main one, of course, would be replacing the name of President Idi Amin with President Omar al-Bashir. With the Arab League in support of the Sudanese president, not even the exile haven of choice would change.

originally from the Huffington Post

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.

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).

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.

A recent report in Ugandan newspaper New Vision says that Okot Odhiambo, one of the 5 Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) senior commanders wanted by the ICC, is ready to throw in the towel and turn himself in to Ugandan authorities.  Apparently he was wounded last December in battle during the offensive mounted by Ugandan forces in conjunction with Congolese and Southern Sudan forces, in an attempt to end the reign of terror mounted by LRA leader Joseph Kony in and around his hideout in Garamba National Park in northeastern Congo.  Kony’s refusal to sign the Juba peace agreement with the Uganda governement, after 2 years of painstaking negotiations, led to the military offensive in December.  Okot says that he will turn himself in to Ugandan authorities under the condition that he not be transferred to ICC custody to face trial and be given amnesty in Uganda, and the Ugandan government has declared that they will follow the terms of the Juba peace deal even though it was never signed, which would call for Okot to face court in Uganda.  This raises yet another challenge for the nascent ICC - despite the terms of the Juba peace agreement, will the ICC still demand custody of Okot?  After all, the ICC was not involved in the peace deal and has a clear justice and accountability mandate, so the Ugandan government would have to mount a “complementarity” challenge to the ICC claiming that they can prosecute Okot under the Ugandan legal system - will the ICC accept this?  After all, the Ugandan/LRA case was originally referred to the ICC by the Ugandan government itself, claiming that they didn’t have the capacity to deal judicially with the mass atrocities committed by Kony and his cohort.  If they have developed the capacity, that would be a feather in the cap of the Rome Statute, that has as a primary goal the strengthening of the national justice systems of the member states, like Uganda.

Okot is not the first LRA commander to defect - on our video page you can see an interview we filmed with Patrick Makasi, LRA Commander of Operations, who defected in October 2007 under mounting tension in the LRA camp over the lack of progress in the peace talks, because Kony wouldn’t sign for fear of being taken to The Hague to face justice.  Kony at the time killed his right-hand man Vincent Otti, but Makasi managed to get away and after several days moving through the Congolese jungle, turned himself in to MONUC peacekeepers, who gave him over to the Ugandan government.

Welcome to IJCentral - we’ve been working for months developing this platform for a global conversation about international justice.  During the 3 years we spent on 4 continents filming The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court, we realized that there are thousands of people who have a lot to say about mass atrocities and impunity and the role that justice should play in moving a society from the horrors of violent conflict to peace and stability, and there are as many opinions as there are voices.  Most of these voices are never heard outside their local milieu - we have a included some of them in The Reckoning, but at IJCentral we hope that the conversation will expand and be ongoing and that through this process we will all contribute to an effective international justice system.  Through the grassroots movement we aim to build through IJCentral, working in tandem with a range of strategic partners reachable through this site, we will let our leaders know that we want international justice to work, that it’s time to get serious about ending genocide, and it’s time to exercise the political will to support the mandate given to the International Criminal Court in its founding treaty, the Rome Statute.

You can reach us through Twitter text messages or posts from their site if you ‘follow’ IJCentral and put ijcentral in your message.  You can also comment on the IJCentral blog, and send us emails at ijcentral@ijcentral.org.  In the coming weeks and months we will be rolling out FrontlineSMS “listening” posts in various countries with our local NGO (non-governmental organizations) partners, starting with Uganda, so that people from those areas can become part of the IJCentral community and voice their concerns and opinions through SMS text messages, and the community will be able to respond to them.  If you’re on Facebook, join our Facrbook group “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court” where we will be posting updates about The Reckoning, including screenings around the world.

We welcome all constructive thoughts and opinions on the rollout of IJCentral - this is the beta version, and there is much work to be done.