Is the ICC suffering a crisis of confidence?

Like many institutions these days, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has something of a problem with lack of funds.

A colleague of mine wrote a very good article about this, which is the hardest one that I have so far had to try to get past editors in London, since it was certain to irk the court.

And an irked court is something that I really could do without, since I need their co-operation in the book I am writing.

But sometimes the court is it’s own worst enemy – see the ill-thought-out comment that they made in the article, which disingenuously said that they could dip into the “contingency fund” that is reserved for unseen circumstances, should they run out of money.

Doh! Is it actually a surprise to anyone that the court has to, ach-hem, actually run some trials next year.

Anyway, the problem all lies with the Assembly of State Parties (ASP), which are the financial backers of the court – i.e., representatives of the signatories to the Rome Statute.

The other week, they had a meeting in The Hague to discuss the ICC budget, and came to the conclusion that they would cut it. Not significantly, but enough to send out a rather disturbing message for those that believe in the permanency of the court.

Part of this, of course, has to do with the relentless economic troubles that member states are facing.

But another aspect of this may be that member states are starting to lose faith in the whole process. Which may be decidedly unnerving for the court, which is supposed to be a permanent fixture on the global landscape, and indeed is expecting to move into permanent digs by 2015 (predictably later than anticipated).

The problem, I think, is the slowness at which the court – and member states have so far seen no real value for their buck. Okay, a few chaps have been arrested (though many are still at large), and that sends out a clear message to other folk in their countries – don’t be bad or the ICC’ll get you, a little like a scary children’s fairytale. But, almost eight years after the ICC came into being (and more than 10 years after the signing of the Rome Statute), not a single trial has run to completion – and probably won’t next year.

Such is the slow pace of internation justice.

Just for the record, because I so often bash the ICC, I don’t disagree with the overall validity of the project. The main purpose of the court, of course, is not to prosecute all of the world’s evildoers, but to send out a very clear message to current evildoers that, should their evil keep being done, they face a very real possibility of ending up before the court.

Like Lubanga. Like Katanga. Like Bemba.

No. My real gripe with the court is the ridiculous political machinations at work behind the scenes. It’s called the Security Council, for the most part. And America, of course, has a permanent seat on that particular body – though is still not a member of the ICC.

Not that such political machinations are necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that some degree of honesty – and communication, Dear Information Department – is needed about exactly what the ICC is trying to do.

And, until that is made totally clear, expect many cash-strapped States to want to bail when the ICC goes begging to them, cap in hand.

Which it must, for some bizarre reason, do every year. How can a permanent international criminal court, whose trials can take years to run to completion, have a budget of just one year? Why not three? Or five?

Does that point, once again, to the lack of faith that signatories to the Rome Statute have about the process?

Charles Taylor

It’s not really in the remit of what I’m covering these days, but, since I am researching a book on international justice, thought I’d tune in to the Charles Taylor trial this lunchtime.

Nothing like a question-and-answer session over which body parts are the juciest to help the tomato-and-aubergine pasta sauce settle in the stomach.

I had two observations about the trial.

One: that it is a helluva lot more interesting than the trials of Congolese warlords that are taking place. No one from the Congo, who has been indicted, seemed to have much of a hankering for human flesh.

Two: Charles Taylor, smartly dressed in suit and tie, seems far less your average warlord and more like a loveable granddad. I was particularly struck by his quick wit and intelligence, as he challenged what the prosecuting lawyer was saying and quite convincingly gave his side of the story. He certainly seemed to have a degree of charisma about him.

More delays at court

Just when things had the slim possibility of getting more interesting than they had been in the Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui trials at the ICC (both being accused of crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo), one the judges – Christine Van den Wyngaert, from Belgium – gets herself involved in a car accident and the whole trial has to be postponed until January.

The first week in the Katanga/Ngudjolo trial has been a little ludicrous.

First of all, technical hitches meant that the proceedings were not broadcast to the DRC, which certainly did little to boost the Court’s standing in the region. This meant that one of the first appearances in the court was of Sonia Robla, head of information, who apologised for this hic-cup.

Then the first witness, called by the prosecution, seemed to give rather contradictory answers and had certain problems defining what a kilometre is (he was adamant it was 100 metres), which apparently was quite pertinent to the trial. Or who was actually attacking the camp.

The pertinance of all of this was, however, lost on me and I was left wondering why the prosecution chose to led with such an apparently confused witness. Perhaps it was just to set the scene. Or something like that.

But we’re not going to find out until January now.

There was supposed to be a second witness testifying today, who was bound to be infinitely more interesting and perhaps even more helpful to the prosecution, but I guess he’s going to be sent home until after Christmas.

More delays at court.

Where it all began

I have just returned from three weeks’ holiday in Japan, hence the inactiveness of this blog.

The visit was mainly rest and relaxation, but I put aside one day to kick off research that for a book about international justice that I plan to write.

I spent a day interviewing people in Tokyo about the war crimes trials that took place shortly after the second world war.

One interview in particular stands out for the raw emotion that I felt whilst conducting it.

The interview was with the grandson of one of those who were indicted for war crimes after the second world war. Not only that, but this particular indictee, as foreign minister, had signed the declaration that authorised the attack on Pearl Harbour which ultimately brought the US into the war.

I had studied all of this in history, of course, but that was text book stuff. This really brought history home, with surprising force. Here was a real person who suffered through these real events, and it took me away from the dusty tombs of A-level history to a world of real people and real feelings.

“For my parents, the Tokyo trials were a matter of life and death,” this interviewee said – since most of the indictees were getting the gallows.

When his grandfather was sentenced to imprisonment instead, his mother got up and said, “we won”.

Besides this fabulously illuminating interview, what came across during my time in Tokyo was how politically-motivated the trials had been.

Few seemed to deny that they were simply “victor’s justice”, with no suggestion that the other side should also be held to account for their crimes.

Moreover, the Tokyo trials were very much shaped by the politics of the time. One university professor said it was very important to look at what the trials (heavily backed by the US) sought to achieve – and that was speedy demilitarisation of Japan. This explains why the emperor, who should have at least been questioned even if he was never indicted, was never touched.

The concept of international justice seems to have changed little, then.

The whole raison d’etre of the ICC is to bring lasting peace to regions afflicted by war, and to put an end to human rights abuses.

Which means that politics necessarily goes hand-in-hand with justice, undermining the purist’s view that the ICC should just be about justice.

That was never the idea, and it can’t work.

The UN’s Security Council (political) makes the referral to the ICC (judicial), and it is then up to the ICC to start an investigation (or not, as the case may be). The two bodies are theoretically separate, but one could argue that they shouldn’t be. There should at least be some formal recognition of the ICC’s political intent.

Look at the mess left by trying to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on a purely judicial basis. Now had one said, yes, we should indict Bashir, but there may be reasons for not indicting him, things may have worked somewhat smoother.

Where’s Kony?

Almost every day, it seems, I am getting a new report from different journalists about where Joseph Kony, that meglomaniacal leader of the Lord’s Resistence Army is.

For there part, Kampala insist that he has now been successfully chased out of Uganda, and, to be fair, he probably has. Just a few straggling remnants of the LRA exist there now.

Over the past six months, we’ve been hearing lots about how he is terrorizing folk in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the message we’re getting from Kinshasha is that the authorities there can’t really be arsed to do anything about the chap.

Recent reports also suggest that he is wreaking havoc in the Centralised African Republic. Again, the government there has troubles that they consider more urgent than dealing with the lone renegade, although it does seem that there is a lot of unnecessary suffering going on there.

Then there’s South Sudan, of course, and the government there are trying to get a lot of political capital out of the supposition that Khartoum is funding Kony’s murderous rampages there again. I wanted to publish something on this, but I’m also very keen not to become part of the GoSS propaganda machine.

And also there are reports of Kony heading for Chad and Darfur (such reports come from the Ugandans), although the UN operation in Chad tell me they have heard no such thing.

So he’s clearly a very busy man at the moment, trying to destabalise about half a dozen countries in central Africa. But no one really seems to know where he is.

The likeliest country playing host to him seems to be the CAR. But there may also be some truth in the fact that he’s stirring up trouble again in South Sudan.

But don’t bother searching the picture above. He’s not there. I’ve looked.

Bashir’s holiday plans

I wonder where Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir likes to go on holiday.

When Osama bin Laden, America’s most-wanted man, lived in Sudan in the 1990s, he is rumoured to have favoured trips to the northern deserts.

A new book written by his estranged wife – Living With Osama Bin Laden – suggests that he used such excursions as training exercises for his boys, to toughen them up for when the Jihad against the Western infidels eventually began. They were forced to sleep in trenches without covers, that kind of thing.

I don’t think that Osama ever entertained the notion of booking his family on a trip to Disney World in Florida.

Al-Bashir must face a similar dilema. After all, it’s hard being a wanted man. Of course, it would be rather hard for him to justify to his bodyguards a trip to Europe. So that’s kind of off-limits.

But one would think a quick sojourn in an African nation would not be off the cards.

After all, the African Union have all rallied together and, worried about one of their own being tried in The Hague (setting a dangerous precedent for other renegade African leaders) have refused to support the International Criminal Court’s indictment. This week (or perhaps early next week) the AU will come out with a new report, recommending that local courts – possibly with some foreign support – try Sudanese war crimes suspects instead. Somehow can’t see that working.

But this presents something of a problem for AU nations, such as Uganda, who are not only a signed-up member of the ICC but also a member of the AU. Uganda’s situation is particular interesting, since they are hosting a conference next year that will look at updating the ICC’s mandate.

ICC members are obliged, under the Rome Statute, to take reasonable steps to arrest court indictees should they fall with their jurisdiction. But, in contradiction of this, the AU is telling members to grant Bashir free passage across the continent.

It’s a tricky one.

A couple of months ago, Ugandan officials – who were subsequently reprimanded by President Yoweri Museveni – made unsettling noises about needing to arrest Al-Bashir if he set foot in the country. He had, at that point, been sent an official invitation to attend a conference there. He subsequently declined.

A couple of weeks ago, he declined a separate invitation from Uganda to attend a conference on African refugees.

This follows on from a previous invitation to visit South Africa, which Bashir also declined.

Then, this week, Bashir announced that he would not be attending the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, to be held in Nigeria.

Most other leaders, who were invited, have been able to attend these events.

Which made me wonder about my initial question: where, exactly, does Bashir go on holiday? I’m thinking probably the north desert, or maybe he pops over to Saudi Arabia or Yemen from time to time. Egypt might be another idea, though they can be a trifle unpredictable there.

Ironically, one of the places that Al-Bashir would be able to escape the court’s reach is America. Since Washington never signed up to the Rome Statute, they are under no international obligation to arrest any indictee that seeks entry to the country.

How nuts is that.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/23567Li

Homeless in Den Haag

I was in the supermarket this evening, waiting in line to pay for my purchases, when I saw just behind me a Dutch guy, looking a tad on the scruffy side.

He had all the hallmarks of being homeless – scruffy dirty jeans, low-cut top revealing area of chest, unkempt and matted hair, crate of booze under the arms.

He was jabbering at me in Dutch.

“Don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact,” I kept telling myself.

And I didn’t make eye contact. Paid for my groceries. And left.

But, as I was thusly avoiding eye contact, I saw that he was turning his attention elsewhere.

Firstly, to two attractive blond women. He was jokingly taking their rolls of toilet paper and saying something in touch that must have been absolutely fantastically funny, because the blond women – rather than telling him to eff off – were rolling around in laughter. I was construing his behaviour as sleazily flirtateous, but it might not have been.

Then he had some banter with the cute checkout girl, who seemed (judging from the pleasant exchange) to know him.

He was a little whiffy, adding to his homeless persona – though, of course, I have no firm proof that he was.

But all of this reminded me of an incident some months ago in Italy, where the snobbyness of people in the supermarket, where the attritude shown towards the homeless both saddened and horrified me.

I think there are a lot of points I like about this country.

Sudan is Arabic, says the UN

I have just spent some time trying to find information about Sudan on the website of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

As one might expect, I began my search for this in the “Africa” regional section.

I had no luck there, however. South Africa was followed by Swaziland.

Unperturbed – since I know that the UNDP have an office in Sudan – I kept looking.

What I found was a separate regional section entitled “Arabic States”.

No, I thought. Impossible.

But, yes. Quite possible. Of course. Anything is when it comes to the UN.

Sudan was indeed lumped in with all the Arabic states, nestled between Somalia and Syria.

Since the whole conflict has been about the Arabic government asserting its authority over the non-Arabic population (and no one really knows how big either side is, due to dodgey or out-dated censuses), UNDP’s decision to label Sudan as Arab is incomprehensible, incompetent and irresponsible.

In other words, no less than what I would expect from the organisation.

Publicity hound

Abu Garda, who stands accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of committing crimes against humanity in the Darfur region of Sudan, is a wiley old bean.

He is so far the only person indicted by the ICC that has voluntarily given himself over to The Hague’s probing.

His “confirmation of charges” hearing began this week, and can be followed on the court’s website.

A somewhat farcical hearing it is true – with lawyers bickering over the most irrelevant details, and allegations of peace-keepers’ deaths being lamentable but nevertheless a somewhat trifling matter for the court to be dealing with.

But for the man in the box, the trial is proving extremely useful.

Abu Garda, accused of being a generally all-round bad sort of rebel, is using the world’s attention on him to highlight the really serious problems that his people are facing at the hands of the government, and to justify the cause he is fighting for.

Moreover, since he came to the ICC voluntarily and has not been forcibly arrested, he is free to come and go as he pleases.

As soon as things look as though they might be getting a little too hot, he can simply disappear into the wilds of Darfur again.

Message duly delivered.

What a wiley old coot.

Dutch culture

Last night, I tried to buy a female colleague of mine a drink. For no other reason than we were standing at the bar together.

At the same moment, she tried to do the same. For no other reason than we were standing at the bar together.

So we were both standing there with our 20 euro notes waving in the air. And which one did the barman decide to reach for?

Hers.

In almost any other culture I’ve experienced, the barman would have, without doubt, taken the man’s money.

Is this some new Dutch equal opportunities liberalism, I’m now encountering? The woman has just as much rights to pay for the drinks as does a man?