ABSTRACT: 25 May 1993: the UN Security Council unanimously approved Resolution No. 827, which provided for the establishing of an ad hoc International Court to judge crimes commited in the former Yugoslavia. The campaign to set up a Court to prosecute the ethnic cleansing, mass rape and violence perpetrated in the Balkans since 1991, has achieved its first tangible result. Defendants will not be sentenced to death. They will not be tried in absentia. And they will all have a right to a just defence.
The special Court must become a reality, in order for Resolution No. 827 not to remain just another document in the UN archives. We must continue to bring considerable pressure to bear on the World Body and its Member States. The Court for the former Yugoslavia is the first step towards creating a permanent Tribunal to prosecute and punish crimes committed against humanity all over the globe.
(THE PARTY new, N. 11, 27 july 1993)
Parliamentarians and citizens must intervene to set up International Court
The Radical initiative
A court that will do humanity justice, not a political court. Almost fifty years after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the International Community has decided to set up the first ad hoc Court to prosecute crimes committed during the war that has stained the former Yugoslavia in blood, for the last three years.
However, the punishment of mass rape and violence is not destined to become a species of "Nuremberg II". At the Nuremberg trials, the victors drew on the principles of International Law - or those proclaimed at the height of the war by a then embryonic United Nations - to name the crimes for which the Nazi leaders would be tried and punished. It was said that they violated the principle "nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege". International Law today recognizes that every human being automatically has certain rights, which are therefore inviolable, and so the necessary laws already exist. There are, in fact, inumerable ramifications of international humanitarian law, the regulations of which are binding for all countries. However, there is still not a supranational authority to guarantee these rights - and this is no small problem! Nevertheless, one must acknowledge that we have at least made some progress since Nuremberg; and also that the Security Council, in deciding to set up an ad hoc Court, is
instituting an authority that could never be likened to a second Nuremburg. The Tribunal is founded on three main legal principles which will ensure that, rather than being modern version of its predecessor it will constitute the first - and we hope decisive - step in the establishing of a permanent International Court. These principles are: the exclusion of the death penalty; the prohibition of trials in absentia; the affirmation of the inviolable right of the accused to legal defence. Can this really be called a small but important step forward in the creation of a form of justice which is no longer a privilege of the victors? The decision taken by the UN leads us nearer to the affirmation of a new model of International Law which sees each human being as the holder of a number of fundamental rights, in the name of which it is possible for every citizen not only to claim the right of interference but also to be granted international protection against his/her own country. Can we therefore say that human d
estiny is at a turning point? We would be illuding ourselves if we did. In fact, it is highly probable that if the UN pledge is not acted upon immediately and remains a dead letter, we shall find ourselves with yet another aborted project. Consequently, we must awaken people's consciences, not only to avoid failure but, above all, to "insititutionalize" this international legal instrument for punishing crimes against humanity, wherever they are committed.
The Radical initiative in favour of establishing an International Court to judge crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia was already underway in December '92. It began with the Syracuse Convention and continued with the presentation of many documents in the Parliaments of various countries. In Italy, a Committee was formed to develop a proposal for presentation to the UN, together with a petition (distributed with the previous issue of "The New Party") signed by more than 50,000 people, which was actually handed over to Ibrahima Fall, Secretary-General of the UN World Conference on Human Rights, last June - by a delegation of parliamentarians from different countries, led by Emma Bonino. Today, the initiative continues with a second petition addressed to Boutros-Ghali and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all States who are members of the Security Council, requesting that the Court be set up and that it become operative. Despite the fact that a formal decision has been taken, there are still a number of
unresolved problems which could seriously jeopardize the ad hoc Court's actually getting off the ground. In his report, Boutros Boutros-Ghali indicated an initial cost of $31,000,000, excluding expenses deriving from the Tribunal's actual funtioning; salaries for personnel, the Public Prosecutor and the eleven judges; and operational costs. The necessary financing will be provided for in the regular UN budget to avoid Member States having to contribute to a special fund, on which the Court would then be dependant. However, this does not eliminate a serious danger: there has been a tremendous amount of cutting back this last year as far as the UN budget is concerned and this could prevent the Court from ever holding its first session. There are, in fact, all kinds of practical, administrative and political problems, from financing, logistics and the choice of the Public Prosecutor, to those regarding the protection of witnesses, the gathering of evidence, defendants being present at the hearing, the non-coll
aboration of certain countries and, last but not least, deadlines that have to be met.
We have no time to stand and stare; to limit ourselves to expressing our reservations about the project; to resign ourselves to the fact that the Court may not become a reality. Does anyone know of a better method for making it understood - and not only in the former Yugoslavia - that ethnic cleansing, mass murder and rape will not go unpunished in this world? We must pierce the protective armour of the State and uphold an international authority's right to interfere in the face of the ills that beset the world, such as violent oppression and the terrible abuse of human rights, that were safely closed in Pandora's box. It is necessary to open this box, but also to establish a supreme authority to deal with these serious maladies. This authority could well take the form of a permanent Court to prosecute crimes against humanity.
