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March 6, 2002 United
States Calls for Dissolution of
UN War Crimes Tribunals The United States announced on February 28 that it wants to end the United Nations' system of international war crimes tribunals by the year 2007-8 because they foster "a dependency on international institutions." Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. Ambassador for War Crimes told the Wall Street Journal that Washington wants to see alleged war criminals tried in the country where they committed the crimes. "We want to bring ownership of the process back to the people, because that is the only way the rule of law will become truly ingrained in a society," Prosper told the paper. The announcement infuriated some human rights activists. "The Yugoslav tribunal has just begun the world's most important criminal trial since Nuremberg," said Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. government is jeopardizing that effort. The timing of Ambassador Prospers statement is incomprehensible." The US decision puts Washington at odds with most of its European Allies, who provide personnel to the UN tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and have ratified the treaty to establish a permanent International Criminal Court. Prosper added that Washington wants the UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, to scrap plans to begin new investigations in the Balkans. He said further investigations would focus on lower-level criminals and that the United States believed it was important for her to focus on "the leaders, the architects, the kingpins." Himself a former prosecutor at the Rwandan tribunal, Prosper criticized the UN courts for moving too slowly and said they have "been too removed from everyday experiences of the people and the victims". He also said the tribunals were slow, costly and inefficient, and that the United States was working with the United Nations and directly with the tribunals to rectify the problems by sending auditors. Prosper added that the United States would be willing to "provide economic, technical, legal and logistical support" for countries that wanted to set up domestic courts to try war crimes suspects. He also urged all states to cooperate fully with the Tribunal’s investigations and extradite all war crimes suspects to The Hague in the interest of bringing them to a close as soon as possible.
Related Links "Experts
Dispute Bush Aide's Criticism of War Crimes Panels", "International Justice, War Crimes and Terrorism: The U.S. Record", a three-day conference at New School University on April 25-27, 2002.
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