Friday, December 22, 2006

THINKPIECE: Questions of Darfur justice

Following the Prosecutor's speech at the security council on the 14th of December 2006, the Darfur situation is most likely to be on top of the agenda for the coming year.
What are your thoughts on that and what do you hope 2007 will achieve for the people of Darfur?

What more can the Office of the Prosecutor do to bring expeditious justice for the people of Darfur?
Comments invited (and appreciated) via here below, email or blog entry (I'll link back to your response and list it here) - thanks.

PS Drima, if you are reading this, I hope you can chivvy up some feedback re above two questions, it'd be interesting to know what those at Mideast Youth blog are thinking. I wonder what American readers' responses would be. If an American blogger picks up on this post and attracts some responses, I'd be grateful. Thanks. More later.

Luis Moreno Ocampo

Photo: Luis Moreno Ocampo. Source SudanTribune article : ICC: "No Sudanese official immune from Prosecution"

Further reading:
The Hague Justice Portal

Sudan Watch: ICC Prosecutor says 1st case against Sudan crimes is ready

Dec 18 2006 FT op-ed by Christopher Caldwell: Darfur: It Is Best to Stay Out - International Criminal Court prosecutors announced on Thursday that they were preparing the first Darfur-related arrest warrants, another mistake. Threatening leaders with life sentences in the Hague turns a situation that might conceivably be resolved by diplomacy into a fight to the death.

4 comments:

crossn81 said...

I think I'd like to see some real changes in the security of the Darfur region, with a strong and active UN Peacekeeping presence, with the power to actually defend Darfurians and as peace is becoming restored justice can begin to take shape in a real way.

Anonymous said...

1. I hope that the janjaweed are disarmed, attacks on civilians cease, and new peace negotiations are initiated with non DPA signing factions in order to create a lasting peace treaty. As a first step towards that, the AMIS mission needs to bring the nonsigning factions back into the Ceasefire Commission.

2. I think the Office of the Prosecutor can just keep working on producing detailed documentation of human rights violations. The ICC may not be able to serve warrants, but having well-documented accounts of abuses is an important pre-requisite for taking appropriate actions, such as targetted sanctions, travel bans, etc.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Ingrid. I'll answer those 2 questions in a blog entry by 2moro or the day after. It will be a pleasure. I'll also request other Sudanese bloggers to comment and give their perspective.

Anonymous said...

Also, does anyone know who might have leaked the original 51 names for sanctions? Sudan was close to allowing in a UN force until that list was leaked, and then they went ballistic accusing the West of neo-colonialism, resource-grabbing. Who would have access to the list? Would a UN bureaucrat have leaked it? Why? Would a national intelligence service have had access to it through bugging of UN facilities, etc? Who would want to leak it, and why?