INTERVIEW-World needs time to accept global criminal court
By Damian Wroclavsky
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, April 29 (Reuters) – The International
Criminal Court will need two decades to win over reticent nations that
fear politically-motivated trials, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor
said.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Argentine lawyer at the ICC prosecution helm,
said he believes the United States and other skeptics will come around
after seeing the court prosecute war criminals without meddling in
countries’ internal affairs.
“If the judges and the prosecutors do their job well, in 20 years
there is going to be consensus. There is already consensus against
genocide but there is no consensus on how to implement the court,”
Moreno Ocampo told Reuters in an exclusive interview at his Buenos
Aires home.
The ICC, whose statutes are ratified by 98 nations, began functioning
in The Hague, Netherlands a year ago. It is the world’s first
permanent criminal court to prosecute individuals for genocide and
crimes against humanity. Everyone, from heads of state down to
average citizens, can be tried.
Moreno Ocampo, 52, was seen as the perfect candidate for the job after
prosecuting Argentina’s “dirty war” generals in 1985, when wounds from
the 1976-1983 dictatorship were still fresh. As many as 30,000 people
were killed or disappeared during one of South America’s most brutal
regimes.
“The trial of the Junta in Argentina was very important because it was
the first trial since Nuremberg of top-level leaders responsible for a
massive crime,” he said.
“One of the teachings of that process was to start with the leaders to
get the whole picture.”
Moreno Ocampo said he will apply the Argentine model to the cases now
before him at The Hague, including war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur
region.
SAYING “NO” TO THE POWERFUL
The lawyer is no stranger to adversity. While trying Argentina’s
strongmen, he lived across the street from an army intelligence base,
making an easy target for those who wanted to stop him.
Now he resists pressure from powerful nations that want to dominate
the ICC.
“The big countries wanted the Court to only begin cases when there was
a referral from the U.N. Security Council, where they have veto power.
The rest of the countries said ‘no’,” he said.
The United States opposes the court vehemently and has sought
exemptions for all its officials and soldiers worldwide. China has
neither signed nor ratified the court’s statues, Russia has signed but
not ratified. But all but one of the 25 European Union nations are
members of the court and provide most of its financing.
Last month, the Security Council asked the ICC to investigate crimes
in Darfur, where at least 180,000 people have died from fighting,
hunger and disease and more than 2 million have been forced out of
their homes by Arab militia.
“This is the Africa decade,” Moreno Ocampo said, referring to attempts
to bring human rights abusers to justice.
He said the ICC could heal war-torn societies by turning conventional
wisdom on its head. In the past, he said people fought for peace first
and said justice would come later.
“The international court introduces a new concept which is to do
everything at the same time. That’s why humanitarian aid and working
for peace are so important,” he said.
04/29/05 19:07 ET
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress