IJCentral: International Justice Central

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.