Tag: Jordan

What elevenses @ Security Council could mean for International Criminal Court

Published on by Diane Marie AmannLeave a comment

unscMy colleague Beth Van Schaack, newly returned to academia after a stint as Deputy at the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice, has posted at Just Security on what the presence of 11 International Criminal Court states parties on the U.N. Security Council could mean for ICC-Security Council relations.

In the past, states parties like Guatemala have used their seat to sponsor ICC discussions at the Council, she writes, and notes that the newest member will hold the Council presidency next month. That would be Jordan, whose Permanent Representative, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, has worked for years on ICC issues and has served as President of the ICC Assembly of States Parties. (credit for 2009 photo of Council in session)

One nagging problem for the Court has been state noncompliance with ICC orders – in particular, of arrest warrants for fugitives like Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – and to date the Council has done little to command compliance by U.N. member states. Another, Van Schaack writes, is the Council’s withholding of sanctions against persons accused by the ICC. Yet another  is the resolution boilerplate by which the Council:

► 1st, declined to contribute funds to aid the investigation and prosecution of the Libya and Darfur situations that it referred to the Court; and

► 2d, immunized any national of a ICC nonparty states (read the United States) from ICC investigation, even if the national were suspected of committing ICC crimes in the referred situation.

(And see here.) In theory, the large presence of states parties could change these dynamics. Or not: Van Schaack writes of criticism that states “‘forget’ that they are ICC members when they are elected to the Council.”

And there is also the matter of the Council’s 4 members who are not ICC states parties, China, Rwanda, Russia, and the United States. Their attitudes toward the ICC range from ambivalent to downright hostile, and 3 of them are permanent members able to veto Council resolutions. Van Schaack indicates that this may have contributed to a “zeitgeist,” an opening for the proposal that the Council ought not veto measures aimed at stopping atrocities. As I detailed in An old new idea to break P-5 impasse, the idea’s been around for more than a decade, but gained new steam when France, a  Council permanent member, embraced it this autumn. The other P-5 ICC state party, Britain, has yet to weigh in.

Jordanian diplomat on Arab world & international justice & accountability

Published on by Diane Marie Amann2 Comments

zeidCHAUTAUQUA, New York – Without the emergence of a genuine, contemporary Arab philosophy, a top Jordanian diplomat predicted today, stops and starts likely will remain the present and near future in the Middle East. To be precise, the diplomat, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told participants in the 7th International Humanitarian Law Dialogs here in upstate New York:

‘When we look at the Arab world, there is no authentic Arab liberal philosophy, and no authentic Arab liberal philosopher, at this moment.’

Citing developments in Iraq since 1968, Zeid said that an earlier such philosophy, the Baath movement, “a strong socialist Arab tradition,” fell apart. The “absence of a genuine drive to articulate something from within” has left a void:

‘If you don’t have an authentic Arab liberal philosophy … what you have in default is the Islamic ideologies which are authentic to the region.’

A new tradition rooted in Arab tradition is essential to “escape” from “mimicking” Western liberal philosophy, he said, noting that citations to documents like Rousseau’s Social Contract invite “the charge that these are important Western ideas. And so he urged liberals to “start writing,” to theorize liberal traditions “in Arab terms” and “grammar.” Until that happens, he predicted:

‘For a long time we are going to see this rather jerky movement backward and forward. … That will be the narrative for sometime to come.’

Zeid’s comments formed the opening lecture for a conference ostensibly devoted to accountability; after all, the centerpiece of the Dialogs is the coming-together of chief prosecutors from each of the international criminal tribunals and courts. Yet Zeid – who helped draft founding documents of the International Criminal Court and served as the 1st President of the ICC Assembly of States Parties – stopped far short of recommending a rush to judgment. Citing history in post-World War II Germany as his example, Zeid called for creating post-conflict “space” within which fighters might come to terms with the conflict, before the onset and investigation of trials. Having spoken of events in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, he said:

‘Many of us have been very passionate supporters of inserting courts into events where a tremendous amount of blood has been spilled. I really think we have to revisit this – not reduce support for the ICC, but we need to develop a more nuanced field.’

Given Zeid’s role in the establishment of the ICC, the comments seem to herald a new moment in the field accountability and transitional justice. Should that be, one hopes for a comprehensive, effective, and well-resourced mix of responses – not confusion that amounts to a retreat from the field.

“Accountability & Arab Spring” @ 7th International Humanitarian Law Dialogs

Published on by Diane Marie Amann5 Comments

“The Long Hot Summer after the Arab Spring: Accountability and the Rule of Law” is the theme of this year’s International Humanitarian Law Dialogs, to be held August 25-27, 2013, at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. This will be the 7th year that international prosecutors and other experts gather at Chautauqua’s lovely lakeside Athenaeum Hotel to take stock of developments in international criminal law. It’s also the 3d year in a row that IntLawGrrls blog will host a Karima-Bennounelecture in honor of Katherine B. Fite, the State Department lawyer who helped Chief U.S. Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson with the drafting of the London Charter and other duties in preparation for the 1st postwar trial at Nuremberg. (My own 2011 Fite Lecture, which describes Fite’s career, is here.)

Delighted to announce that this year’s Fite Lecturer will be California-Davis Law Professor Karima Bennoune (above). I’ll have the honor of introducing Karima, an IntLawGrrls contributor whose new book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism, will be released on Monday, August 26, the same day as her IHL Dialogs lecture. (It’s available for Amazon preorder now. IntLawGrrls posts by fatwaand about Karima are here; the op-ed she published last week in The New York Times is here.)

Karima’s lecture is just one of many special events planned for this year’s Dialogs. Other highlights:

► Reflections by current prosecutors, featuring Fatou Bensouda (below; photo credit) of the International Criminal Court, Serge Brammertz of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Andrew T. Cayley of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Brenda J. Hollis of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Hassan Jallow of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and Ekkehard Withopf of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Former prosecutors set to attend the Dialogs include 2 from the Special Court for Sierra Leone: David Crane, organizer of the Dialogs, and ICC-Prosecutor-Fatou-Bensouda-file-photo-UN-Photo-Rick-BajornasStephen Rapp, since 2009 the Ambassador-at-Large and head of the Office of Global Justice, U.S. Department of State.

► Keynote address by Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former President of the ICC Assembly of States Parties.

► Year in review by Washington and Lee Law Professor Mark Drumbl.

► Panel on legal and policy issues related to the Arab Spring, moderated by Washington University Law Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, as well  as porch sessions on multiple aspects of the topic.

More information is at the website of the Robert H. Jackson Center, a primary sponsor, here. Other cosponsors include the American Society of International Law and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.