Goldstone report: is Obama continuing the Bush legacy?
From Foreign Policy in Focus:
On October 1, the Obama administration successfully pressured the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to drop its proposal to recommend that the UN Security Council endorse the findings of the Goldstone Commission report. The report, authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, detailed the results of the UNHRC’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. These findings included the recommendation that both Hamas and the Israeli government bring to justice those responsible for war crimes during the three weeks of fighting in late December and early January. If they don’t, the report urges that the case be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible prosecution.
The Obama administration has declared — in the words of U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice — that such a recommendation is “basically unacceptable.” It has insisted that any legal remedies be handled by the respected parties internally. Since neither Hamas nor the Israeli government will likely prosecute those responsible for war crimes, the administration’s action will essentially prevent these Palestinian and Israeli war criminals from ever being brought to justice.
Indeed, the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress appear to be continuing the Bush administration’s policy of ignoring and denouncing those who have the temerity to report violations of international humanitarian law by the United States or its allies. [...]
More here.
Child soldiers: trial as deterrent?
Pierre Holtz, UNICEF CAR
Robert Marquand of the Christian Science Monitor poses a question on the Lubanga trial, still underway at The Hague since it opened nine months ago: “Is an army of child soldiers a war crime?” Read more
Guinea to probe rally shootings
From the BBC:
Guinea’s military government has announced it is setting up a commission to investigate the shooting of protesters in the capital last week.
Its members are to be drawn from political parties, unions and civic organisations as well as the military. Human rights groups say 157 people were killed in the incident, while the government puts the figure at only 57.
Opposition parties have rejected meditation talks until those behind the stadium killings face justice. [...]
More here.
Separately, The New York Times reported yesterday:
Cellphone snapshots, ugly and hard to refute, are circulating here and feeding rage: they show that women were the particular targets of the Guinean soldiers who suppressed a political demonstration at a stadium here last week, with victims and witnesses describing rapes, beatings and acts of intentional humiliation.
More here.
Will the Obama team join the ICC?
Chibli Mallat, professor of international law at the Univeristy of Utah, seems optimistic about the Obama team’s approach to international law and justice. Mallat, who is also EU Jean Monnet Chair at Saint Joseph’s University in Lebanon, speculates the new administration is “set to reverse Bush isolationism”.
While re-engagement with the international community through such multilateral institutions as the United Nations may be true, the U.S. joining the ICC seems a reality yet far away. The implication of an ICC inquiry into NATO and American forces’ actions in Afghanistan was what led the Bush administration to rescind President Clinton’s signing of the Rome statute. And recently, the ICC prosecutor has made it known he was gathering information on possible war crimes committed by NATO soldiers and insurgents in the country. More here.
At the same time, there has been a steady stream of little signals that the new administration has been mulling ratification. Back in August, Clinton said it was a “great regret” that the U.S. was not yet a signatory to the ICC, signaling the strongest indication yet of improved U.S. cooperation.
Observers, including Mallat, have seized upon such statements. He points out in a Daily Star article on 7 October:
“The [administration of US President Barack Obama] is reportedly close to announcing a change in US policy toward the International Criminal Court (ICC), including affirming President Clinton’s 2000 signature on the Rome Statute and increasing US cooperation with the court,” Brett D. Schaefer and Steven Groves from the conservative Heritage Foundation said last week.
This would be the most important legal policy change so far by the new president, far more important than the closing of Guantanamo.
Such a step would be welcome. Contrary to the received notion that all Republicans oppose the ICC, a little-noted signal has come from the most respected jurist in the Republican camp: Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman justice on the US Supreme Court, joined an American Society of International Law taskforce which recommended in March active collaboration with the ICC. [...]
More here.
A slightly different take from Howard LaFranchi of Christian Science Monitor, 12 September:
Ocampo notes that Afghanistan is an ICC signatory, so the court has “normal jurisdiction” there. Right now, he says, the court is simply assessing cases of “collateral damage” and alleged torture to see whether they warrant a full investigation. [...]
Court advocates note that by the end of his second term, President Bush was sounding more accepting of the court – especially after his own conclusion that “genocide” was occurring in Darfur. That warming trend has continued under the Obama team, with some court supporters expecting the administration to move toward joining the ICC.
“If they don’t,” says Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, “we will be on them like white on rice.” That desire to see the US inside the ICC could influence how the court approaches a case like Afghanistan, if achieving global representation is seen to be of greater long-term value than pressing ahead on prickly questions of justified soldier conduct. [...]
More here.
Supreme Court Kicks Off With a New Justice
The Supreme Court began its new term on Monday with much focus on the new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the high court’s first Latina member who has drawn much media attention over recent months. More here.
Reshaping U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan
Where the U.S. strategy is going, and the latest debate on surgical strikes against terrorist suspects. Read more
Honduras Crackdown Drawing International Condmenation
The international community sounds alarms over the Honduran crackdown on freedoms. Read more
Keeping the Goldstone Report Alive
Palestinian authorities had a change of heart, calling it a “mistake” to have deferred Goldstone action.
From the Jerusalem Post:
A member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s inner circle said Wednesday that the Palestinian leadership had erred by suspending action on the Goldstone Report, which alleged that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter.
Last week, Abbas apparently gave in to US pressure and agreed to suspend the push for war crimes tribunals. Abbas aides defended the decision by saying they were only delaying, not dropping action.
However, on Wednesday, senior Abbas adviser Yasser Abed Rabbo said that “we have the courage to admit there was a mistake.” [...]
More here.
HRC Concludes 12th Session
The Human Rights Council today concluded its twelfth regular session, adopting texts on a wide range of issues, including on discrimination against women, adverse effects of the movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights, human rights and unilateral coercive measures, the right to development, freedom of opinion and expression, protection of the human rights of civilians in armed conflict, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, human rights and international solidarity, the situation of human rights in Honduras since the coup d’état of 28 June 2009, and on Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners in Myanmar.
More here at UNHCHR.
UN Defers Decision on Probe into Gaza Conflict
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferre
The UN Human Rights Council decided today to defer action on a draft resolution on the “Goldstone report”. Read more
