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U.S.'
Role In Serb Leader's Trial Makes International Justice System
Inevitable
By Andrew Reding, Pacific News Service, July 5, 2001
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the coming trial of Slobodan
Milosevic is the willing role played by the U.S. government.
This participation, like it or not, means the beginning of the
end of the United States' longtime opposition to the idea of
an international court. Pacific News Service Associate Editor
Andrew Reding directs the Americas Project of the World Policy
Institute, where he is senior fellow for hemispheric affairs.
MADRID -- In the short run, the transfer of former Yugoslav
dictator Slobodan Milosevic to await trial on charges of genocide
in the Netherlands may seem like a triumph of U.S. diplomacy.
It was, after all, the promise of large sums of development
aid that caused Serbia to surrender Milosevic to an international
court.
Yet there are far bigger forces at play here, whose eventual
outcome will be to undermine U.S. efforts to resist the globalization
of human rights laws.
Most Americans still see the U.S. as the proverbial city on
the hill, whose legal system is, whatever its limitations, so
superior to any other as to make submission to any international
legal order unthinkable.
That is one reason the U.S. Senate has never ratified the American
Convention on Human Rights, and why the Bush administration
remains resolute in its opposition to the International Criminal
Court.
Another reason is the understandable reluctance of the world's
last remaining superpower to relinquish any of its prerogatives.
Yet in its desire to bring a despised adversary to justice,
the U.S. is indirectly validating the emerging international
criminal justice system. That is all the more so because Milosevic
is being brought before an international tribunal, rather than
being brought before a U.S. court, as the senior George Bush
did with former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
But that's just the beginning. The transfer of Milosevic signals
the consolidation of the European model of international human
rights law. The European Union has used its economic muscle
to persuade European countries to abolish the death penalty
and submit to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human
Rights in Strasbourg. Milosevic's Yugoslavia was the key holdout.
That has now changed with the power play staged by Serbian prime
minister Zoran Djindjic, who surrendered Milosevic to the international
court in The Hague. Pointing out that the government of Yugoslavia
has in effect become irrelevant now that it encompasses only
Serbia and tiny neighboring Montenegro, Djindjic acted on his
own authority as head of the Serbian government. He thus upstaged
Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica, just as Russian president
Boris Yeltsin once did to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
Djindjic made a point of saying that this is just the beginning,
signaling that Serbia is opting into the European system. That
means Serbia will abolish the death penalty and accept the jurisdiction
of the European Court of Human Rights. More broadly, it is,
like the rest of Europe, setting international human rights
law above the concept of national sovereignty.
What's more, there is no way of limiting the new paradigm to
Europe. International law is built primarily on treaties and
precedent. Human rights treaties are already in effect, making
certain crimes -- including genocide, torture, and politically-motivated
murder -- international in scope. Now, following the arrests
of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and of Milosevic,
the precedents of international criminal jurisdiction are also
in place.
Washington can do nothing to stop this process. A Belgian court
has just sentenced Rwandans to lengthy prison terms for their
participation in genocide against ethnic Tutsis. Spanish and
Italian judges are seeking extradition of Argentinean torturers.
And each case creates additional precedent, further undermining
national sovereignty and consolidating the new international
legal order.
Because of its key role in the transfer of Milosevic to The
Hague, Washington can no longer even complain about this process
without seeming hypocritical.
Think about it. There is no stopping the globalization of human
rights law. Opposing it makes the U.S. look silly, and suggests
Washington is insincere in its advocacy of international human
rights.
Bill Clinton did the right thing in signing the Statute of the
International Criminal Court in the waning days of his presidency.
Is it not time for President George W. Bush and the U.S. Senate
to now follow suit with a ratification, enabling the U.S. to
join the 36 other countries that have thus far given a definitive
NO to impunity for crimes against humanity? |
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