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Bush Presses For Closing of Tribunals - International Justice - Global Policy Forum Bush Presses for Closing of Tribunals
By Jess Bravin
Wall Street Journal
February 28, 2002The Bush administration is seeking a firm timetable for shutting down United Nations war-crimes tribunals, saying they have been marred by instances of mismanagement and abuse that "challenge the integrity of the process."
One U.N. court is trying Slobodan Milosevic and other alleged Yugoslav war criminals, and another alleged Rwandan war criminals. The U.S. wants future prosecutions handled by each country's own domestic justice system, as soon as current high-profile cases are completed.
That view will be detailed today when the administration's top war-crimes official testifies before a House committee hearing on the tribunals. The U.S. position has escalated a conflict with its major allies, which favor expanding the reach of international tribunals; they plan to replace the ad hoc panels with a permanent International Criminal Court for war crimes.
The divide existed before Sept. 11; Washington traditionally has resisted international institutions that potentially might try to exercise jurisdiction over the U.S. But the difference has grown sharper following the terrorist attacks, with the U.S. vigorously opposing any move that suggests -- as some European leaders have -- that alleged perpetrators of international terrorism would best be tried by international panels rather than in U.S. courts.
"We want to bring ownership of the process back to the people, because that is the only way the rule of law will become truly ingrained in a society," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war-crimes issues. The U.S., he said, is prepared "to provide economic, technical, legal and logistical support," to help improve domestic court systems, but the amount has yet to be decided. Mr. Prosper is expected to testify today before the House International Relations Committee.
While the current tribunals have done some good work, he said -- and together have indicted 193 suspects -- "we don't want to create an environment where there is a dependency on international institutions."
European officials said they don't understand why the Bush administration is raising the rhetoric in the midst of the most notorious case since Nuremburg: the trial of the former Yugoslav president, Mr. Milosevic. "Undermining the credibility of the U.N. tribunal when we are at the pinnacle of its accomplishment is suicidal," said a European diplomat.
California Rep. Tom Lantos, the House committee's senior Democrat, said that international tribunals still were needed. Waiting for states like Yugoslavia "to get their courts in order only means that war criminals will go unpunished," he said.
In November, the war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, told the U.N. Security Council that she hoped to wrap up trials by 2008. But the Bush administration believes that date can never be met if Ms. del Ponte follows her plan to pursue dozens of new investigations involving 150 additional suspects.
"We want her to focus on the leaders, the architects, the kingpins" of genocide, Mr. Prosper said, while prosecutions of "mid- and lower level players" should be delegated to national courts.
The turning point for U.S. officials may come if the two most-wanted fugitives, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, are turned over to the tribunal. The two former Bosnian Serb leaders have been indicted on genocide charges for the killings of Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s.
The Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals have moved too slowly, and have "been too removed from everyday experiences of the people and the victims," Mr. Prosper said. They have been costly, with annual budgets of $100 million each, and have faced questions about "the integrity of the process," he said. Earlier this month, the Rwanda tribunal dismissed a defense attorney, after allegations he inflated his bills and split his fees with a defendant. Similar problems have affected both tribunals, a U.N. internal audit found last year.
While there have been problems, "people should keep in mind that the NATO countries spent in one year [of military operations in Yugoslavia], 1999, the equivalent of 200 years of the Yugoslav tribunal budget," said William Pace, who heads the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, an advocacy group that supports U.N. tribunals for war crimes.
The remedy advocated by the Bush administration is strengthening the domestic justice system in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and other countries. In Yugoslavia, that means building up conventional courts, while in Rwanda the approach may involve using the country's traditional "gacaca" system, with tribal elders dispensing justice to lower-level perpetrators. "The penalty may be, `Now you need to givetwo cows, or you need to farm the land of these people,' " said Mr. Prosper, a former assistant U.S. attorney who himself led a successful prosecution for genocide at the Rwanda tribunal in 1998.
But most EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members are moving in the opposite direction, by establishing the International Criminal Court. The ICC treaty -- signed by President Clinton in the last weeks of his term but never sent to the Senate for approval -- has been ratified by 52 countries, including Britain, Canada and Germany. Should eight more follow, as proponents expect this year, theICC will begin operation in The Hague, where Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals are based.
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