Part of the International Conflicts series
Cross Purposes? International Law and Political Settlements – A Roundtable Discussion with All Speakers
A panel of all the previous speakers collectively discussed the challenges with amnesty for war criminals.
The problem with the so-called hacienda model, where war criminals go into exile, is that eventually everyone wants to come home.
We return to the big question of what is the objective of international law. Is it transitional, with the goal of becoming a Western model of democracy? Or is it reconciliation, using the values of the people involved, instead of imposing our own?
How do we deal with tyrants? Threatening them just makes them fight on harder. But creating a tradition of granting impunity can encourage massive crimes.
Should we be developing incentive structures? A dichotomy exists between an economic model and conventional wisdom.
Amy Chua’s book World on Fire was introduced, which states that democracy often creates mass violence through ethnicization of politics. Market dominant minorities become targets of group violence, such as the Tutsis in Rwanda.
Chua, a professor of law at Yale University, says,
In the numerous countries around the world that have pervasive poverty and a market-dominant minority, democracy and markets — at least in the form in which they are currently being promoted — can proceed only in deep tension with each other. In such conditions, the combined pursuit of free markets and democratization has repeatedly catalyzed ethnic conflict in highly predictable ways. This has been the sobering lesson of globalization in the last twenty years.
We also need to start evaluating the cost/benefit of dictators. Iraq now has sectarian violence that simply did not exist before the invasion.
In a joint article in the Washington Post with Jed Rubenfeld, also of Yale Law, Chua says,
Given the conditions that exist today in Iraq — conditions created by colonialism, autocracy and brutality, not to mention the historical schism between Shiite and Sunni Muslims — rushed national elections could very well produce renewed ethnic radicalism and violence …an anti-American government determined to oust U.S. firms from Iraq’s oil fields. Any of these results would create, at best, an awkward moment for the Bush administration. Combined, they could be catastrophic for American interests, for the Middle East and for Iraq.
Nor is universal jurisdiction quite as robust as we normally assume. There is the complexity of individual situations that should be considered, and state sovereignty cannot always be easily dismissed.
Legalistic thinking tends to propose universal solutions for all problems. There is a distinction between international law, and inter-national law. But are there some universals? Perhaps the freedom from great evil?
Some form of accountability is needed. The method most often used (or imposed) is a Western proceduralized legalism, operating under the assumptions of infallibility and that it is the best method available. There is a need for a more pluralized process instead.
The panel asked, “What are the links between group violence, democratization, role of international criminal law?”
They then concluded by saying that the law exists because states believe in what is in their best interests.
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.
Resources
Empire and Tolerance: The Rise and Fall of World Dominant Powers
April 9, 2007
Amy Chua, John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law
Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua gives her inaugural lecture as the John M. Duff Professor. Professor Chua, an expert on international business and globalization, gives a historical overview of world-dominant powers and discusses the possibility-and desirability-of an American Empire.
“My lecture will be about history’s hyperpowers—a surprisingly rare phenomenon—and a remarkable pattern I’ve found that connects each and every one of them,†said Chua. “To be a little cryptic about it, let me just say that the secret to global dominance is tolerance. In my talk, I’ll offer examples from the Achaemenid Persian Empire founded in 550 B.C. to the Great Mongol Empire of the 13th century to the British Empire in its Victorian heyday. I’ll conclude by discussing the implications of my thesis for the 21st century, specifically addressing the debate about the possibility—and the desirability—of an American Empire.â€
Listen to this lecture on a podcast:
Duration: 56 minutes. Download in MP3 (53 MB).
