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By JONATHAN POWER LONDON - Two questions: Do we all accept that present day outbursts of ethnic hatred are due more to leadership manipulation than ancient animosities? And are we prepared, as a counter to this, to subordinate national loyalties before a law that transcends individual cultures and societies? If the answer is yes to both then common sense suggests there should be no roadblocks in the way of bringing to a speedy conclusion the negociations that opened in Rome this week to finalize the details on the establishment of a World Criminal Court, a body that will have the right to bring the likes of Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Pol Pot and Radovan Karadzic to justice. It is, no less, the most exciting judicial idea to come on the world scene since the writing of the American Bill of Rights in 1791. But we are not dealing with common sense. We are dealing with American hubris--and to a lesser, but still serious extent, with Indian, Egyptian and Mexican sensibilities. Nearly every other member country of this UN conference--even, it seems, Russia and China, despite some reservations--supports this next great revolutionary step in the use of law rather than war in the pursuit of a more civilised humanity. The Clinton Administration was one of its early proponents. But now the end is in sight, the U.S., pressured by a visciously misleading anti campaign, waged both privately and publically by the Pentagon brass, is demanding last minute changes to the negociating text that seemingly would exempt America from the common standard. Of course, the Pentagon's stand produces a resonance in Congress that makes the White House feel beleaguered on the issue. Politicians are easily seduced into the crowd-pleasing stance of "standing up" for sovereignty. Fortunately wiser counsels have prevailed at least some of the time so that a part of the history of the stormy twentieth century has been the incremental adoption of international law, as nations have been persuaded to forgo parts of their cherished sovereignty around the house in return for a more benign atmosphere on the block. That is why we have the signatories of an overwhelming majority of nations on the Air Hijacking Convention, not to mention the more complicated Torture and Genocide Conventions. It is why relatively recently there was almost unanimous support for the establishment of the War Crimes Tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda. (The latter has just secured a plea of guilty to genocide from Rwanda's former prime minister.) It is why after the Second World War the big powers moved to set up the World Court, the "cathedral of law" which, although it takes only a few cases--and is limited to those involving quarrels between states--has fixed precedents and shaped the interpretation of principles, treaties and practices in the whole field of international relations. It has arbitrated and settled such hot issues as the argument between Libya and neighbouring Tunisia over access to the continental shelf; Hungary and Slovakia's quarrel over damming the Danube; and the frontier dispute between Burkino Faso and Mali. In 1974 Australia and New Zealand asked the Court to rule on the radioactive pollution they believed they were suffering because of nearby French atmospheric nuclear tests. Before the case could be heard France suspended the tests. (If India and Pakistan were really honest about their dispute over Kashmir they would have no hesitation in taking it before the Court.) A World Criminal Court will do for individuals what the World Court has done for governments. As the South African judge, Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor for the ex-Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal, has put it, "there's only one way to stop criminal conduct in any country. That's not having sentences, not even the death sentence. If would-be criminals THINK they're going to be caught and punished then they're going to think twice." We are now waking up to what the press describes as "deep seated hatreds" and "ancient animosities" and realizing, for all their historical baggage, they only become full scale killing-fields when they are stirred by unscrupulous leaders. Thus, an extension of the rule of international law aimed directly at such individuals is the world's best long-term antidote to the ethnic cleansing contagion. At the onset of such strife, with a World Criminal Court in place, ringleaders can be warned through diplomatic channels of the consequences of what they are up to and it made clear to them that no stone will be left unturned in the attempt to bring them to book. If they persist, international warrants, with attendant publicity, can be put out for their arrest. It will be Israel's pursuit of Adolf Richmann on a grander and wider scale. (The Nazi propagator who was discovered in Argentina in 1960, abducted by Israeli agents, tried in Israel and executed.) No one suggests such a court will end all ethnic wars, all torture chambers, all genocidal madnesses. But it is one more hand on the brake, one more step forward in mankind's eternal quest for the civilised state. The American delegation in Rome, negociating as much among themselves as with the world, have only a month to get their derailment of this momentous idea back on track. Commonsense--and self-interest--should point Washington only in one direction.
June 17, 1998, LONDON Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
 
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