RIGHTS-UN: Hopes for Justice Greet Opening of ICC Conference

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

ROME, Jun 15 1998 (IPS) - When diplomats from more than 180 nations begin five weeks of meetings here on Monday, the task they face will be formidable, human rights activists say: the end of impunity for all future mass murderers.

If the U.N. Conference to Establish an International Criminal Court (ICC)is successful, its supporters argue, it will prevent further Pol Pots from terrorising civilians while the world watches silently, and will make world leaders think twice before planning a Rwanda-style genocide.

“In the future, no one will be allowed to be guilty without anyone speaking out,” argues Lamberto Dini, foreign minister of Italy – which is not merely hosting the conference, but is pushing for a highly independent and powerful Court.

That is quite easily said, but how many governments really want a Court that can prosecute their top military officers or even heads of state? As some ICC supporters have acknowledged in the days leading to the Rome conference, Saddam Hussein cannot be trusted to authorise a future ICC to investigate the alleged 1988 massacre of the Iraqi Kurds.

Nor does the United States intend to give much power to any body which could judge U.S. soldiers stationed abroad, with U.S. Ambassador David Scheffer, the head of the delegation negotiating in Rome, warning that an ICC with that much authority could cripple U.S. peacekeeping.

When you look at the fine print, in fact, there are dozens of countries who want the Court to function for other countries’ war crimes, but not necessarily for their own.

France and the United States want enough U.N. Security Council oversight that both nations – which have veto power in the Council – can guard against any prosecutions they find unwarranted. China wants state consent to be a requirement for ICC prosecution – a requirement, argued Human Rights Watch associate counsel Richard Dicker, which would give vetoes to all governments, including those led by suspected war criminals.

Two basic visions of the Court are on the table at Rome: one which would have an independent prosecutor and a wide range of powers to conduct investigations with minimal Security Council or other oversight; and a “victor’s court” that would, like the Nuremberg Tribunal after the Second World War, only try officials who have lost their power.

“This would be a very strange justice, that only prosecutes the losers,” argued Domenico Contestabile, vice president of Italy’s senate.

Nor will it be acceptable to the nearly 300 non-governmental organisations, many of them human rights groups supportive of a strong Court, who are attending the Rome meeting. “We will not be prepared to support a Court at any cost,” warned Jelena Pejic, senior European coordinator for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

If the ICC is too dependent on state cooperation – so that Hussein, for example, could veto any prosecution of the Iraqi massacres – it would not be worth setting up, she contended.

Signs that a weak Court may be unacceptable has put pressure on the largest nations to find some compromises. Britain has accepted a proposal, dubbed the ‘Singapore compromise’, which would allow the Security Council to take specific items off the Court’s docket if the Council votes positively to do so – but would not allow any single Council nation to veto or oversee the ICC’s work. The United States is expected to swing behind that compromise as the Rome meetings proceed.

Those nations have seemed to understand the argument, as a New York Times editorial put it, that “few nations will cooperate if the Court is seen as a tool of the big powers, which can veto actions against them or friends”. But other countries also remain wary of granting too much power to the Court – from countries with spotty human rights records like Nigeria and Indonesia to non- aligned mainstays like Mexico and India.

Those countries in turn face a bloc of some 50 countries, stretching from Western Europe to Latin America to Southern Africa, who are pushing for a stronger, more independent Court. How that battle is resolved will depend on the next five weeks.