LIBYA: Human rights lawyer on Kadafi warrant impact on Arab Spring
After the International Criminal Court prosecutor's requested arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, son Seif Islam and brother-in-law Abdullah Sanussi for crimes against humanity, Babylon & Beyond spoke with Widney Brown, a human rights lawyer and senior director for international law and policy at Amnesty International in London. She helped lobby for passage of the ICC's Rome Statute in 1988 that covers such warrants.
Q: How significant is the prosecutor's request for these ICC warrants?
A: It’s a good sign that being a head of state is not seen as a protection against having a warrant issued when there are signs you have broken the law.
Q: But how effective are these warrants, given that other embattled leaders -- for instance, President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir in Sudan -- have had warrants issued against them and remained in power, traveling the world without being arrested?
A: [Bashir's] world has definitely gotten smaller. But it is distressing to see the number of countries that seem very happy they don’t have to arrest him. He’s being very careful about where he’s going. It’s not a good sign that you can have an outstanding warrant for a year and nothing’s been done.
Q: The warrant for Kadafi would only cover crimes committed since the current conflict began Feb. 15. Could past crimes be included, too?
A: What you have also with Col. Kadafi is not only the crimes he is alleged to have committed in the conflict now, but the crimes he committed in the past, some of which are ongoing. The prosecutor might be able to look at ongoing crimes. It’s not as if there’s going to be a dearth of things to investigate.
Q: What would be considered "ongoing crimes?"
A: For instance, enforced disappearances.
Q: Would that be similar to those disappeared in South America's "dirty wars" in the 1970s?
A: Yes, like in South America's dirty wars. That was when the term was created, when governments found it very effective to disappear people. Quite frankly, that’s what’s happening in Syria now. Why they’re being rounded up is pretextual or illegal. They’re being held incommunicado, they don’t have lawyers and we think they’re being subjected to torture and disappeared into a black hole. Things are worse now in Syria than they were in Libya when they made the Kadafi referral.
Q: So you and Amnesty officials think the ICC should pursue warrants against Syrian officials as well?
A: For the ICC to maintain its legitimacy, it needs to maintain its consistency and not irreparably politicize justice. We have called on the ICC to make a referral on Syria, to refer the situation to the prosecutor.
Q: Why Syria and not other countries in the region, such as Bahrain, Yemen or Egypt?
A: When the military is really turning on civilians in a systematic way, that certainly is a trigger to say this could be crimes against humanity. It’s not to say we’re not looking at evidence we’re gathering in places like Yemen, Bahrain and northern Iraq to see what evidence there is. All these countries didn’t ratify the Rome Statute. So you want to go to the U.N. with really good evidence. You don't want it to be a case where they cannot defend their own actions in terms of making the referral.
Q: How many countries in the region have not ratified the Rome Statute that allows for these warrants to be issued?
A: The only country that ratified it in the Middle East was Jordan. Egypt and Tunisia have said they will, but they have not deposited instruments of ratification with the U.N. yet.
The interim Egyptian authorities have also said they will investigate and prosecute those responsible for crimes during the revolution.
Q: But how can you guarantee they will investigate fairly when a new president has not even been elected?
A: If it turns out that the investigation is a sham, then you revisit the case and try to get it before the International Criminal Court. People have a gut feeling that justice is a local concept. They want justice in their own countries and you want to support that. In Egypt, for instance, you want to build a credible justice system because then if they do it right, you’ve helped rebuild a critical institution.
-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Cairo
Photo: A man looks at portraits of people who killed or disappeared under Moammar Kadafi's regime in Benghazi, Libya, on Monday. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, announced Monday that he would seek arrest warrants against the Libyan leader, son Seif Islam and the country's intelligence chief on charges of crimes against humanity. Credit: Rodrigo Abd /Associated Press.
Rome Statue was passed in 1998, not 1988 as stated in your article
Posted by: christoph | May 17, 2011 at 12:42 PM
Again, the international courts are hypocrits, no human rights abuse charges against Hamas, Iran, China, Korea, Sudan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Syria, Chavez, Ivo Morales, Oh.. let's not forget about Castro and Cuba,..... to name a few, but ... only against Gaddafi becasue he is about to lose.. The courts are worthless, arrogant, and stuck up... and only reflect a way to divert the real attention that the world is helpless against these morons and dangerous countries. They, the self rightious courts only go after those who cannot defend themselves... Who gave the courts yes them the right to go after anyone,... when they refuse to do something about the biggest perps listed above, Please save the platiudes for the under educated losers who can't see past their noses.. In the real world, the courts verison of reality is a fantasy and a delusion thinking they have any legitamacy.
Posted by: umi katan | May 17, 2011 at 10:45 AM
It would perhaps be smart for Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to participate in the engineering of his fathers arrest; seeing as the situation cannot be reversed, or made to "go away."
Saif had demonstrated in the past a sympathy with the West and democracy. Maybe if Saif were seen to participate in the restraint and delivery of his father - an irredeemable madman - he then might have earned vindication from the charges promulgated against himself.
Posted by: Jim Kendall | May 17, 2011 at 10:42 AM
I meant Isreali soldiers witnessed their own atrocities and maltreatment of civilians with some being killed. Not the gaddaffi ones. Every nations has her own dirty linen and they all have skeletons in their cupboards and the ICC is turning out to be an unjust organisation
Posted by: fred | May 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM
I suppose the palestinians are inferior human beings in the yes of the West. Heard of 'Breaking the Silence'. Of course the UN and ICC have heard of them. But isreal is a friend of the West as is bahrain, Saudi etc, and Syria and Yemen serve the Western interest so ICC are mute
Tell me why Bush and Blair are still free men today is the ICC are serious about what they stand for
Posted by: fred | May 17, 2011 at 10:08 AM
Someone wishes to complain that the IDF witnessed atrocities performed by Kadaffi's terrorist army? Or that Israel saw Syrian troops fire upon citizens? And this is Israel's fault because why? You're reaching out to humanitarian efforts and at the same time confusing Israel with somehow running Libya and Egypt. Let me try to put this in perspective. You are like the rapist who claims to be the victim. Get your head straight.
Posted by: Complain Complain | May 17, 2011 at 09:25 AM
Why no mention of Isreal despite evidence by former Isreali soldiers who witnessed these human right breaches? Why not American and Western soldiers who have targeted civilians. Extraordinary rendition by the US? They make people disappear.
The ICC are not credible because only those not liked by the west come under fire. Their politicised definition of justice is the very reason many countries don't take them seriousy
You have to have the same rules for all to occupy moral positions
Do they think the Lybian rabels are all golden humans who did not intentionally or recklessly target civilians? If some of the Gaddaffi crimes were before this conflict, then why now?
And NATO clearly targets civilian facilities. Just because they have well paid PR guys who com and tell the World otherwise does not mean they haven't. The evidence seen daily suggest they do target civilians intentionally or recklessly
Maybe Gaddaffi's grandchildren are not civilians. They tell us they are not targetting him yet daily try to bomb wherever they think he might be. Who is fooling who?
Posted by: fred | May 17, 2011 at 08:12 AM
Nice interview.
Amb John Bolton, the Bush era US ambassador at UN, argues that ICC indictment of Kadafi will obstruct search for a settlement. But evidence is that indictments can also isolate and increase pressure (which is presumably why all 5 permanant members of UN Security Council supported ICC investigation of Libya).
The US ambassador to Uganda noted in 2006 regarding peace talks with the Lords Resistance Army, whose leaders were indicted at ICC: "The ICC is not a hurdle to the talks. Instead, it is the reason why we have peace talks today."
I'd also recommend James A Goldston's recent piece in Foreign Policy which expands this same argument: http://is.gd/25UT3P
Jonathan Birchall, Open Society Justice Initiative
Posted by: Jonathan Birchall | May 17, 2011 at 07:49 AM
The accusations are preposterous in that virtually every country in the world does some of these things. In an emergency every democratic country has a special law that removes the right of habeus corpus, i.e. people are arrested secretly with no right to a lawyer and no information on charges against them etc. The US, UK, Canada etc all do this against "terrorists". In Canada the War Measures Act in 1970 allowed these secret mass arrests in Quebec.
As for disappearances, don't look at South American "death squads". NATO's special forces are celebrated for the hundreds of dissident political leaders, imams etc that they have "disappeared" in Afghanistan through killing them or putting them into prisons unknown to the media or their families. The justification is that they are fighting an insurrection. That is what Gadaffi is facing.
Posted by: Tom | May 17, 2011 at 06:52 AM
It so obvious that there really is no such thing as a sovereign nation. All nations and heads thereof are just puppets of the masters who pull their strings and make them dance to their own agenda. Crimes against humanity? Where is the arrest warrant for the Pope? Do the sovereign magi really think the whole world it going to take it up the tail pipe? I hope they choke on the blood and bones of their weekly christ sacrifice ... Get agripa!
Posted by: Rachel | May 17, 2011 at 05:58 AM