IJCentral: International Justice Central

I am troubled by a persistent current of thought regarding ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s call for the arrest of the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  Judges at the ICC are currently considering whether to issue the warrants, and based on leaked information that was published in the Washington Post (now taken down from their website after the ICC Public Information Office denied that warrants had been issued), I suspect that the judges will issue warrants charging al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not genocide.  In any case, those who say that the warrants for al-Bashir should be suspended or retracted if they are issued are putting forth the worn-out argument that the international community is treading on thin ice and may provoke a violent backlash from al-Bashir, thereby derailing the peace process in Sudan (What peace process? Can they be serious?).  A good example of this is an article from the Guardian UK by Paul Adrian Raymond, quoting Alex De Waal of course, saying that al-Bashir will lash out, that Africa will retreat from international justice and become a “universal jurisdiction free zone”.  These arguments claiming that justice is an idealistic folly of human rights advocates are on the wrong side of history.  I was raised in Latin America in a time when dictators ruled and they were considered untouchable.  But civil society persevered, often mocked for their “futile efforts”, and now 30 years later, lo and behold, generals went to prison, dictators were put on trial, and Latin America is practically a dictator-free zone.  Justice played a crucial role in this transformation, and the establishment of the rule of law has become a given in most Latin American societies - witness the ongoing trial of ex-President Alberto Fujimori of Peru, now in the dock facing charges of human rights violations in his own country.  I think that eventually the rule of law will prevail in Africa as well, and if the ICC helps it get there, it will be fulfilling its justice mandate.  I don’t buy the Alex De Waal argument - I think that the majority of Africans want the rule of law to prevail, regardless of what their leaders may say.  Power doesn’t like limits, and the ICC is a threat to those who would prefer to operate with impunity, but I think that the impunity gap will be closed.  And as ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says, “Africa is at the vanguard of international justice”.  Africa is the continent with the highest number of countries that are members of the ICC, and it’s good to remember that Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo did not initiate the ICC cases in Africa - Uganda, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic are all ICC member states, and they referred themselves to the ICC, and the Sudan/Darfur case was referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council.  So these charges that the Prosecutor has targeted Africa have no foundation - these conflicts in Africa are real, and accountability must be pursued or there will never be peace.