RIGHTS-BELGIUM: Law Loses International Scope

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Greta Hopkins

BRUSSELS, May 22 2002 (IPS) - Rights groups are campaigning to get the teeth back into a law that seeks to permit prosecution in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad.

The 1993 law seeks to give Belgian courts jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide regardless of the nationality of the accused and “regardless of the place where they were committed.”

But a series of recent court orders have limited its scope. As a result it cannot be invoked if the accused are not in Belgium. It will also not apply if the accused held a political mandate at the time of alleged violations.

A key element of the law was overturned when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague ruled that a Belgian arrest warrant for former foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Abdulaye Yerodia violated international law. A case had been filed against Yerodia for “serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

The international court at The Hague ruled that there is no international legislation to provide for such an arrest.

The scope of the law was further reduced when a court ruled that “proceedings on crimes…will only take place if the accused can be found on Belgian territory.” Yet another change in the law passes the burden of proof on to the victims.

Belgian politicians argue that the law has turned Belgium into a magnet for all the world’s human rights cases.

Cases brought against heads of state have proved embarrassing for Belgian diplomacy. These cases include one against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged involvement in massacres in Lebanon in 1982. There is another against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for allegedly supporting terrorism.

But in a case of successful prosecution under the law, four Rwandans living in Belgium were convicted in June last year of participating in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The verdict showed that “cases under the law of universal competence were possible both from a technical and a cultural point of view,” says Eric Gillet, one of the prosecutors.

The proceedings in that case were “innovative and novel”, says Melanie Uwamaliya, a relative of Rwandan victims. “While no one can bring us back our families, at least we were recognised as victims, and this was important.”

Gillet says the new limitations on the law are “disastrous”. Making the law conditional on the presence of the accused in Belgium strips the law of its original purpose and renders it powerless in most cases, he says.

Several groups have launched a campaign now to restore the original powers of the law. Amnesty International, Lawyers without Borders, the International Federation for Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and the Belgian League for Human Rights say the original law is an essential part of a global fight against impunity.

The groups say Belgium has now lost its place at the vanguard of in ternational justice and protection of human rights around the world. They say if Belgium backs down, other countries will be deterred from introducing similar legislation.

“The Belgian law was a model which has proven to be an indispensable tool for victims,” says Antoine Bernard, Executive Director of FIDH. “Such a law does not exist in any other country, at least not with such a wide scope of implementation.”

Attacking the change which places the burden of proof on the victims, Bernard says “we cannot ask victims to do the jobs of detectives and lawyers.”