Subject: INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL
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Boutros Ghali: Prosecuting war crimes
"Juger les crimes de guerre" is the title of an article by Boutros Ghali in
today's issue of Le Monde, page 5 (18 nov.).
"For the first time since the Nrnberg trial" - writes the United Nations
Secretary-General - "the sanctions of international law are applied to war
criminals. It is unacceptable that particularly abhorrent crimes, of which
there are witnesses, remain unpunished."
"I would like to underline", continues the Secretary-General, "the
importance of such tribunal in my view. I would also like to underline that
the creation of an international society based on the rule of law is a
slow, chaotic and uncertain process. It pleases neither sensation-lovers
nor risk-takers. It is, therefore, a patient progress of the international
law which surely underlines the stages of the evolution of universal
morals. The establishment of the tribunal is in this respect exemplary. The
Security Council, at my suggestion, has decided to establish this tribunal
under Chapter VII of the Charter, i.e. as an international sanction. It is
a precedent the importance of which deserves to to be underlined. War
criminals must face the punishment of the law. And while the war continues
to claim its victims in the former Yugoslavia, the law must condemn those
who breach the most elementary rules.
By this decision the Security Council wants to signal that war crimes and
systematic human rights violations are by now real threats to peace, and
should be handled as such. Moreover, the Security Council wanted to
underline that it is operating on behalf of the international community as
a whole. All United Nations Member States are required to concur in
applying the international sanctions. They should therefore do all they can
to allow the tribunal to fully carry out its mandate.
The intention of conferring an international quality to the tribunal is
reflected in the composition of the same: the United Nations General
Assembly was charged with electing the procurators and judges. Through its
vote it conferred the widest possible and universal assize to the newly
created institution. The procurator, Mr. Ramon Escovar Salom, comes from
Venezuela; the eleven judges come from America, Australia, Canada, China,
Costa Rica, Egypt, France, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Therefore, it is the international community as a whole that is called to
prosecute the war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.
The international law has long since been condemning these crimes. The
Geneva Conventions for the protection of war victims, the convention on the
prevention and punishment of genocide, the Convention of The Hague of 1907
and the martial laws and customs as well as the Nrnberg principles have
created an actual international humanitarian law. Yugoslavia once ratified
these texts. The question is no longer, as in Nrnberg, retroactively
applying the law to the vanquished. The question now is making rules that
are recognized by the countries concerned operative. The tribunal on
ex-Yugoslavia is an example for the future.
First of all, its mandate opens radically new prospects for the punishment
of war crimes. All those who have committed crimes will be subjected to the
jurisdiction of the Tribunal. Likewise, the Tribunal is competent to
prosecute all those who were instrumental in any way in planning and
carrying out the human rights violations.
The world in which the U.N. must carry out its action is a very different
ones from the one that emerged at the end of World War II and which imposed
itself with the cold war. The question is not just maintaining peace among
the States, in the respect of the sovereignty of each of these. It is also
necessary to confront the obstacles that divide and oppose the populations
within a same State. New conflicts threaten the international peace now
more than ever, and are a serious threat to individual rights. They require
of us to seek new answers and new solutions, because the construction of a
policy based on democracy and human rights is one of the challenges of our
time. It is in this context that the full meaning and value of the creation
of an International is revealed.
