On War Crimes Part IV: Just say no to the ICC

Vancouver - - Last week there were many news reports that have begun to uncover the positions by the Clinton Administration on what happened in Rwanda in 1994. In typical Clinton fashion the inter-administration debate centered on language.

Between April 6 and July 4 1994 800,000 people were slaughtered. On May 21 Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed to let the State Department suggest that, "acts of genocide have occurred." By June he had dropped the "acts" and confirmed that it was simply "genocide". There was also a Defense Department memo, dated May 1, 1994, that clearly is part of a debate on whether or not admitting that there was genocide would require US involvement.

It is the same "lawyer-ing" that gave us Bill Clinton's definition of sex. The logic being: if we simply don't call it genocide maybe it isn't happening. How many acts of genocide would it take before it is called genocide? In 1999 in Kosovo it was clearly less than 800,000.

Never mind the fact that people like President Clinton who failed to do anything about the genocide in Rwanda are the same ones supporting the framework for a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) to address these concerns.

In Rome, July 1998, the ICC was given the go ahead toward creation, upon ratification, in a vote of 120 to 7.

In a recent NY Times Op-ed, Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson writes that, "American interests would be well served by an international criminal court that could help prevent the carnage that we have seen so recently in Bosnia and Rwanda."

The problem with the ICC and the panacea notion of humanitarians like Richardson is obvious. If the ICC is too strong many believe that it will be overbearing and unaccountable. But given the track record of UN sponsored programs it is more likely to be very weak. In that case it is unlikely to act as a deterrent to those wanting to commit war crimes.

This is not to say that the ad-hoc tribunals of the post WWII era and to a much lesser extent in Rwanda and Bosnia are not worthy. In fact they are better because they take into consideration the greater good of peace over justice. In South Africa there was a tribunal designed to deal with the end of apartheid and to find ways of establishing truly democratic institutions. These tribunals focused on "truth" rather than "justice" and found that exposing the truth for the public helped to heal and prevent the reopening of old wounds at a later court date. The problem is that the ICC would begin to prosecute criminals before conflicts are over.

Go To Page: 1 2 3

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic