Part of the International Conflicts series

 

Joseph Rikhof: Fewer Places to Hide? The impact of domestic war crimes prosecutions on international impunity

Joseph Rikhof, law faculty at the University of Ottawa, discussed the effects of prosecution.

Romeo Dallaire said that importance of prosecution is not just in convictions, but also as a deterrent.

Augusto Pinochet, former Indonesian president, decided not to visit Switzerland due to concerns over prosecution, so prosecution can have a deterrent effect in some situations.

Victims of war crimes, such as  Srebenica survivors, often see the role that lawyers play as that of advocates.

Experts are still discussing how The Hague impacts mental health. The potential impact can be significant if people are punished, but if it takes a long time the delays can lead to disappointment.

One of the newer developments is the classification of terrorism as a war crime. This has led to language changes and changes in statutes to encompass this shift.

Ethiopia is an example of a country that has a special war crimes prosecutor, which convicted former rule, Mengistu Haile Mariam. This would have been impossible a decade ago.

There is however the danger of universal law meaning that western courts act as saviors, and potentially play the role the colonialism previously did.

These notes are from the Cross-Purposes? International Law and Political Settlements conference at the University of Western Ontario, on Jun. 9-10, 2007, with some editorial content added by Omar Ha-Redeye.