Some See Challenge to National Sovereignty
>From Augusto Pinochet to Slobodan Milosevic, the arm of the law is
growing longer and the world smaller for national leaders and others
accused of atrocities.
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What is dawning, human rights lawyers say, is an age of justice
without borders - and not everyone is happy about it.
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The trend, while celebrated by human rights advocates, is being viewed
by some lawyers and governments as an alarming challenge to national
sovereignty and a potentially unpredictable political tool.
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The case of Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader who was handed
over to an international tribunal last week, more than any other
"demonstrates that even the highest government officials are
vulnerable to international prosecution for the most heinous human
rights crimes," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human
Rights Watch.
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"It's a momentous occasion for Milosevic's victims, who might see a
modicum of justice done," said Mr. Roth, whose organization supports
what is being called "universal jurisdiction" for human rights
offenses.
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"But it's also an historic moment for the human rights movement," he
added, "because it will begin to force would-be tyrants to think twice
before replicating Milosevic's atrocities."
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Some fear, however, that such a trend could also have a potentially
paralyzing effect on government decision-making, and they warn that
there are no guarantees that such prosecutions - which are
hopscotching borders in roundabout ways - will be even-handed,
indicting the friends as well as foes of great powers.
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Nonetheless, there is a trend - whether justice is pursued by
international tribunals, under national laws or by states and
prosecutors claiming that some crimes are so awful that the accused
should have no place to hide.
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There was Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama who was seized and
convicted of drug trafficking by the United States in 1989.
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There was Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean strongman, who spent a
year and a half in British custody on a Spanish warrant before being
allowed to return home, where his legal problems continue.
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Hissan Habre, the former leader of Chad, was under arrest in Senegal
until a new government turned him loose last year, but his fate
remains uncertain. Jean Kambanda, a former Rwandan prime minister,
went to jail for life last year for his role in the 1994 genocide,
mostly of ethnic Tutsi.
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Others may get their days in court. Peru is demanding that the
Japanese extradite its former president, Alberto Fujimori. A Belgian
prosecutor is trying to open proceedings against Saddam Hussein of
Iraq, whose case is also being studied by American officials.
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Foday Sankoh, though not a head of state, will almost certainly face
proceedings in Sierra Leone for leading a particularly vicious rebel
army against a government in which he was a minister.
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At the Yale Law School, Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international
law, said the idea of universal jurisdiction first arose in 1919, when
there was an abortive attempt to put Kaiser Wilhelm on trial for World
War I.
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After World War II, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials were the
century's high point in the use of universal jurisdiction for war
crimes. But after that, this kind of law became a narrow, specialized
field, Ms. Wedgwood said. Now, she calls it "a growth industry,"
revived in recent years with the establishment of war crimes tribunals
for the Balkans and Rwanda and with the impending opening of the
International Criminal Court, perhaps within the next two years.
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That court will be the first permanent body charged with trying
individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The
United States remains a reluctant nation, and has opposed setting up a
permanent international criminal court, in part over fears that the
court could someday be used to prosecute its own soldiers or leaders.
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William Pace, convener of the Coalition for an International Criminal
Court, said the speed that the movement for universal jurisdiction has
picked up in a decade is remarkable.
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"Between 1989 and 1995," Mr. Pace said, "virtually every international
affairs expert promised us that there would never be a statute to
create an International Criminal Court, that it would take another 30,
50, 100 years."
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He added, "Equally, we have been told over the years that never will
we see Milosevic transferred to The Hague. One of the messages here is
that patience works. The era of impunity is being replaced by a new
era of international law and justice."
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But some legal scholars are disturbed by the pressure put on
Yugoslavia by rich nations, especially the United States, through
threats that money needed to rebuild the country would be withheld
until Mr. Milosevic was turned over.
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And Henry Kissinger, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs,
warns against what he sees as a dangerous mix of law and politics in
what he acknowledges has become a growing movement for universal
jurisdiction.
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Mr. Kissinger, whom some critics want to see face trial for his
policies in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, writes that a universal
system "must not allow legal principles to be used as weapons to
settle political scores." He sees a possible chilling effect on makers
of foreign policy, who would have to weigh whether they could be
prosecuted for acting on behalf of what they see as their nation's
interests.