A seminar for editors sponsored by The Crimes of War Project and The Freedom Forum

Day Two, Panel One: Demystifying War: The Role of International Humanitarian Law

Moderator: Elizabeth Neuffer, journalist, Boston Globe, and the author of a forthcoming book about war crimes and the Rwanda and Bosnia war crimes tribunals.

Discussant: Ann Cooper, Executive Director Committee to Protect Journalists

Discussion

ANN COOPER: Well, I think you fulfilled your promise to be a maverick or independent. And I want to follow up on your suggestion of re-evaluating the immunity of non-combatant objects. Actually, I'd like to hear from all of the speakers on one particular issue that I want to raise an action for examination, and that was the bombing last year of radio and television Serbia, which happened in April.

It's an issue that’s of obvious interest to the journalists here. But I think also a discussion of this can help eliminate the complexities of interpreting these laws of war that we've been talking about.

Within NATO itself there was we are told dissent about the legitimacy of targeting that particular facility. And Mr. Burger, I'm particularly interested in hearing from you because you said during your talk here we do not target civilians. We do not target civilian property.

Now, in the weeks before the bombing by NATO of Radio Television Serbia there were NATO statements made that essentially RTS had become a target because of it's propaganda content, the propaganda that it was broadcasting. It was even suggested at one point that RTS could save itself if it was willing to put several hours of western programming on the air every day basically as a counterbalance to what it was putting out.

Under these arguments it's our view that RTS was looked at as a civilian facility just as a TV outlet in a NATO country is. And by the way, I've had it suggested to me many times that there were broadcasters in NATO countries who were broadcasting what some people would also consider to be propaganda. So you can imagine the alarm when I think that journalists everywhere feel if they believe they are now to become targets because someone defines their programming as propaganda and then makes the leap as NATO did in this case to paint that as a justification for bombing them.

And I would suggest, and maybe this sounds like a ridiculous hypothetical, but after NATO's bombing of RTS then what is to stop hypotheticals like Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein from attacking BBC or CNN or some other broadcaster and arguing that these are military targets because they broadcast propaganda just as NATO bombed RTS when it was broadcasting propaganda. I don't know who might want to address that first.

ELIZABETH. NEUFFER: Mr. Burger, you look like a willing victim.

JAMES BURGER: Everyone's looking at me for that. Ann, I think you've raised a very difficult question because duel-use targets were a difficult issue that we had to look at in the Kosovo campaign and there was disagreement among the NATO allies on some of these duel-use targets.

And probably you've picked the one that is perhaps most controversial and most difficult because certainly journalists are protected under the conventions and customs of law. And journalism and radio stations and newspapers are civilian institutions and we certainly have an interest in protecting those civilian institutions.

But at the same time you can have military giving out propaganda and accomplishing military objectives by publicizing things, broadcasting things. And we do that in our own Armed Forces. And if we do that in our own Armed Forces and our own Armed Forces would be doing that, I think we would be subject to attack.

And in the same way, if the other side was doing it and if they were taking a civilian institution under the cover and accomplishing their military purposes for it I think that that institution can become subject to attack as well. And it's a difficult judgement to say that you've decided that that normally civilian object has become military.

But it's one of the things that I address that the military commanders they want to be able to make that military decision if they think it's militarily necessary. And a decision was made that in this particular case that the line had been crossed to such an extent that that communication facility was being used for military purposes.

ANN COOPER: Can you elaborate on that? You're talking about a duel-use target. In what way was it being used militarily? What made it a military target?

JAMES BURGER: Well, the fact that it was being used for propaganda purposes to advocate the war effort even to go as far as to advocate the ethnic cleansing which was going on and what they were trying to accomplish. And I know we were concerned with these things when I was in Bosnia too because we had Serbian radio stations which were advocating resistance to the NATO peace keeping effort. And we had problems and we had to close down some of those stations.

In that case we didn't bomb those stations but we did use military people to close down a military communications facility because we felt that it was being used for a military purpose being used against the peace keeping effort. And so we made this decision.

KEN ANDERSON: If I could, I'm going to actually firmly disagree, I think with what Jim has said. I think that the idea of reaching to propaganda for its military value as something which can transform something into a military target as though it were a tank or as though it were an actual command and control center for military troops is something that ought to frighten all of you out there a great deal.

I think that it requires a certain kind of arrogance on the part of military decision makers to believe that they can draw those kinds of lines and determine what constitutes propaganda. If that's the standard then the Wall Street Journal editorial page surely deserves to be bombed.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: You can put that on the Pentagon's target list.

KEN ANDERSON: Yes.

JAMES BURGER: What's that address again?

KEN ANDERSON: Now, the second point, however, that I would make is that I believe that the rationale that was offered about bombing it because of propaganda value and that constituting military target was plainly illegal and that NATO announced something which was a plain illegality that it announced an illegal intention.

What surprised me about that is they announced anything at all because had they not announced anything as far as what their intentions were. Then I also believed, simply speaking as a lawyer on this, that the facility itself, the duel-use facilities of that kind of electronic communications, always have a military value. And although one may say that they should not be bombed because they're not at this moment being used for their military purpose, I think that it's pretty clear under the standards which have been laid out in the international community that the Red Cross has set out certain categories of targets which is not quite per se targets or things which you're going to wind up getting assumed military purpose to them. And I think that they could have bombed the station on those grounds.

But as soon as they announced that it was being bombed because of its propaganda value I think that the military crossed the line at that point.

Finally, I guess I'd have to say that I have Ann on the panel that as much as I respect CPJ as an organization I must say that I firmly disagreed with CPJ's decision which, of course, aroused a great deal of discussion not to characterize -- and I may get this slightly wrong -- but the journalists who were killed in some of those attacks for the reason that they had incited violence.

Again, if that's the standard then the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times I'd say that the editorial pages across the western countries would be just as implicated in that. And I realize there's a great deal of controversy about that and certainly would not want to question the enormous value of CPJ's work. But I think that was, in fact, the wrong call.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: We've got some people already signaling from the audience so I'm going to quickly join in. Our distinguished speaker from last night.

OLARA OTUNNU: Thank you very much. I was fascinated by what has been an excellent discussion. Can I encourage you to address three other points in addition to what you've been discussing? One is the place, the role of traditional societal norms along side the international norms that you've been discussing? Why? Because in part the largest proportion of the world's population relate to those norms. They probably have not yet heard at all about what we are discussing this morning. We certainly should do everything to make them know about these norms. In the meantime, what they know and what they relate to we are not discussing.

But also in part because as I think many of the armed conflicts we're talking about in the world today are unfolding within societies within countries. And therefore, that relevance is all the more so of the societal norms as opposed to norms which regulate international conflict. But I also believe finally that, in fact, it may be the only way to mobilize large populations and constituents around the world who
care for the protection of civilians and vulnerable populations by using their own idiom and by using the ethical bearing to what they can relate and through that they can relate easier to what we are discussing in terms of elaborate and formal international norms. That's one issue.

The second issue which I would wonder here more about is how do non-state actors who have not signed these instruments. They have not been part of the elaboration. Formally speaking they are parties to these instruments. And yet they are among the most active often negatively in many situations of conflict today. Where do they fit into this? How do you rope this into this circle of obligations, if you like? Already it is true as has been said that some of the recent instruments beginning with the Geneva Conventions begins to include them. Another way is obviously to get commitments by laterally, by directly, voluntarily by this group as I was relating to some of you last night. And then obviously, politically how to engage and how to in a way enhance the prospects for adherence by these groups at purely political level.

And then the last and third point I'd like to make is I would have wanted to hear a good deal more this morning and maybe you will still comment on our discussion later. Once we have elaborated these norms and identified the gaps and sought to strengthen them, where do we go from there in terms of their impact on the ground?

Who cares that these norms are there? And surely after 50 years of the most impressive project of elaboration, we should now be turning our energies to a political project. How does one proceed to encourage, to provide carrots and sticks to enhance the prospects of respect and application on the ground?

This is essentially a political project. And I think the media has an incredibly important role to play in this in ways which I don't want to go into today. But I think I touched on some aspects of it last night.

Thank you.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: Those are great questions. And certainly one quick observation, in a country like Rwanda you find discussion now centering on a new traditional farm of justice known as kachachya, which basically allows village elders to pass judgment. And they've revised this so it can apply to war criminals.

Part of this is to try to clear the incredible backlog of prisoners out of the jails. But it's also because this is something that Rwandans are used to doing, which is to assemble a village and wait in judgement. And they actually find the court very isolating and very confusing. And so perhaps, Ambassador, you can weigh in on some of these questions. How do we make norms stay alive? And how do we make these laws real to the people on the ground?

DAVID SCHEFFER: It's -- your excellency, it's one of the most difficult issues that we deal with as a government because it's the pragmatic application of these laws that is the greatest challenge.

As I said yesterday, we have been moving from an era of codification to one of enforcement. And I'd like to actually respond to all three of your points very, very briefly because they raise fundamental issues that occupy us as diplomats.

On the role of traditional societal norms, I can assure you that these are issues that confront us head on. And particularly they confront us in the context of a very difficult negotiation that might be underway between rebel groups and the legal government of the country where an internal conflict has racked it apart.

And the issue that arises that seems very natural to those who are negotiating which for us who have been involved in these issues for so many years has great difficulty for us is the issue of amnesty. And we witnessed this front and center in Sierra Leone, where it came so naturally to both the Kabbah government and to the rebels to immediately start talking about it, putting it on the table, making it front and center, making it the lubricant of the negotiations.

And I remember, you know, talking with President Kabbah about this and trying to convey how one needs to distinguish different types of amnesties, durations, time periods, significance, et cetera. And yet, we all saw what emerged in the Lome Peace Accord in July of 1999 which were two amnesties. One specifically for Foday Sankoh and the second for the combatants in the conflict.

And yet what I think is instructive about that amnesty is that it is premised in the text itself of Article 9 of the agreement on their being a lasting peace. Those are the opening words of the amnesty, "In order to achieve a lasting peace, amnesty." And I think it's very instructive. And I said this in a statement I think on March 6, 7, or 8th on Capitol Hill, which is on the State Department Web site about Sierra Leone, that has a condition built into that amnesty which is that if that lasting peace in deed is not achieved then it calls into question not only the provisions of Article 9, which are the amnesty, but all the other provisions of the Lome Peace Accords.

So we need to keep that very, very front and center in our examination of events as they unfold right now in Sierra Leone.

The second thing about this was, of course, the amnesty was only up to July 7 of 1999. Anything that occurs after July 7, 1999 has no relevance whatsoever of article of the Lome Peace Accords. And so that needs to be clearly understood. But it is a clear example of almost automatic assumptions coming into the negotiations. Which for us we have to think long and hard about the issue of an amnesty.

Secondly, your second question about how do norms affect insurgencies who are so active, how do you bring them into the circle of knowledge about international humanitarian law? Well, I would answer that, quite frankly, so much of what we have talked about is in the realm of customary international law which is not insignificant.

If it is within the realm of customary international law the rebels are bound by it even if they have not signed a particular convention. Their government may have signed that convention and if their government has signed it then like it not they're bound by it even if they're in opposition to the government.

But even beyond that if it has entered into the realm of customary international law then I'm afraid that their standard remains as high as that law requires. And if they don't know about it then that can become a factor in how to determine their prosecution. But it certainly does not immunize them at all from the obligations of customary international law.

And finally third, where do we go from there? Once norms are in place how do we get them enforced? I must say that so much of my work is not only with respect to things like the permanent ICC and these multi-lateral efforts to administer international justice, but increasingly it is looking into domestic systems and trying to determine how can they themselves develop a credible mechanism that, indeed, enforces international humanitarian law in a conflict context or an atrocities context or both.

And that's a fascinating exercise, and I think it's a very, very important one because it tries to impose a discipline domestically to actually do what they're supposed to be doing which is enforcing this stuff in their domestic courts.

And I cite as examples today Indonesia, Cambodia, and Kosovo, where the U.N. has been very involved and we've been involved with the U.N. with the concept of a Kosovo war crimes and ethnic crimes court that would deal with a lot of those low-level perpetrators of crimes on the ground in Kosovo that the Yugoslav tribunal simply is not going to investigate or take a great deal of attention to because they're not at a senior level that merits the attention of an international communal.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: I've got questions lined up like aircraft over LaGuardia, so I'm going to take them in order.

A PARTICIPANT: I have to add one comment to this. I'm sorry to say. Which is I think that the point that you raise goes to perhaps the most critical point that sort of floats above anything that we're talking about here. And that fundamentally is the question of the legitimacy of this body of law that when you point out that this is in some ways disconnected as a sort of norm or standard or law or something from 95 percent of the world's population in some way that live in societies that are governed
by a different set of rules.

Well, I contrast that with what I read in the newspapers in the west all the time. I mean, there's this extraordinary run over the course over the past few years of what I think of as sort of "gee whiz" articles about tribunals and things like that. "Isn't this a wonderful thing that we're creating out here, and look at what we're doing."

And I think to myself that this is much closer to the consolidation of the sort of international groups of folks who spend a lot of time on airplanes flying around and who float in the ether sort of in the jet stream above these societies that are actually living through these things and are consolidating a body of law which sounds very agreeable to people like us sitting in these kinds of rooms when we talk about it to one another. But it doesn't actually reach out to these other folks.

And on the one hand we do things like move towards the creation of the local Rwandan chambers, the village level adjudications, or in Kosovo these other kinds of local level things. But the fact of the matter is that these things are not fundamentally routed in many cases in the local societies where these things are. They're essentially western impositions. They are in some sense analogous to colonial institutions.

And that's not to say that they shouldn't be tried and that they don't need to be done. But we have to understand that the regimes that we're putting together in some way represent as much as anything the consolidation of the consensus of an international elite talking to itself rather than anything addressed to the rest of the world.

And we only understand that when it breaks down and everybody that said, "Gee whiz, isn't this a wonderful thing?" suddenly discovers that it doesn't work and says, "Oh, well, I guess that's because nobody who actually had to live with it gave a damn about it.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: All right, the other incredibly sad fact one discovers on the ground both in Bosnia and Rwanda is that most people don't know what's actually happening in either of the courts which is another issue.You had a question?

TONY BORDEN: Tony Borden, from the Institute for War and Peace. I wanted to return back to the question of the transmitter, if I could, with two questions. In legal terms what is the distinction between the building the station in Belgrade that was bombed and the towers in Kosovo that were taken out? What's the difference in legal terms? It's part of a civilian institution?

And secondly, is there a case at all for criminal responsibility of journalists in war crimes? And if you conclude that there may be does that have a bearing on the legitimacy as having been targets in some way if they were engaged in something which was related to the prosecution of the war?

A PARTICIPANT: Are you talking about in the case of the people in RTS?

TONY BORDEN: Well, I'm talking about it in general. Is there a case for a criminal responsibility? It's quite awkward for us to now say well they were only journalists because they weren't only journalists in that sense in terms of power in terms of actually how this society functions. And probably the real reason to hit that tower -- and that wasn't the only station that was taken out when the political party building was taken out. Milosevic's daughter's radio station was taken out. These were strikes at the heart of the regime, and everybody in Belgrade knew that. That was probably I would guess the military purpose of that. But maybe those questions that I asked could help tease the question out a little further.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: Mr. Burger, can you jump in?

JAMES BURGER: I would make the distinction between making a journalist a target and making a thing, a tower, a target or a news institution a target which is owned and operated by the government and being used for the government purposes in a particular case, saying that that's a military purpose. So, you know, I don't think you're targeting the journalists but you're targeting the tower, the thing that's being used by the government for military purposes.

A PARTICIPANT: But then why did you target the building? I mean, you could have taken out the infrastructure for the station without hitting the building. That's the problem. That's exactly the question.

ANN COOPER: And I think it was rather well-known that people were there 24 hours a day, that there were going to be civilian casualties.

COL. DUNLAP: Let's talk in the abstract a little bit just about this general, not that particular tower. A strictly military perspective tells us that there's a remarkable trinity of the people, the government, and the armed forces that enable a country to wage war. Military people are always trying to disassemble that trinity.

Part of that is the ability of the government to maintain its support. So apart from everything else there's a legitimate military reason to want to dissemble that relationship. Now, to the extent it's propaganda and incitement to genocide, you know, if you're a reporter, didn't they hang somebody at Nuremberg, what's his name, the --

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: Julies Streicher?

COL. DUNLAP: -- the minister of propaganda? One of them. So conceivably, yeah, a journalist could become a war criminal if they're inciting the genocide, for example.

But the other factor that goes into this thing is a very technical one that has to do with the nature of communications in modern societies and their integrated nature. I don't know about those towers. There's lots of things that could be on towers that are besides what their usual use is. So there could be other technical reasons.

But I think you raise a good point. And one of the things that we spend a lot of our time -- and the way my job has changed over the last ten years is that when we look at a target we are looking at how are we going to disable that target? So the answer may be taking out the power plant that's out in the sticks or the transmission lines.

So in other words, we just want to neutralize them. If we can do that minimizing even combatant casualties. We want to do it because that's all we want to do is neutralize it. I think the problem in the future is going to be -- let's forget about this problem -- I think in the future news organizations are going to have satellites. They're going to have their own UAVs. They're going to have all other kinds of things that are in battle areas.

And let's assume -- there's an article in Parameters that talks about this where all that was owned by China, the Chinese news agency. And it was transmitting real time information of great military value to the adversary forces. But forget about the law but what's the reality, the political reality of trying to execute?

From the military perspective what I tell military officers is in the future we should not -- this whole theory of achieving information superiority is misguided. We should be figuring out how we are going to fight in an information transparent environment because at the end of the day let's assume that the journalists were not transmitting propaganda.

Let's assume that it was good, accurate information that was showing us misdirected bombs or something like that. Can a democracy terminate that even though it's adversely affecting public support? I mean, this is a policy question that I think we're only now coming to grips with because of the independent capability that technology has given journalists. It's changed the world.

So we're in a new paradigm but we haven't changed the policy and the thinking through of how a democracy ought to wage war has not yet been conducted.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: Colonel, I think the Ambassador wanted to quickly jump in and then Ann and then I have a question on this topic from the audience and if anyone else wants to jump in on this topic if you want to signal I'll take you and then there are a long list of people still waiting to ask questions related to other topics.

DAVID SCHEFFER: Okay, very quickly I want to suck in Colonel Dunlap's final thematic point because if you look at the work of the Rwanda war crimes tribunal right now there are defendants who are there because they were part of the propaganda machine of the Rwandan government that incited the genocide. And I'm sure defense counsel are going to draw distinctions between whether these individuals were acting solely in their private capacity as journalists versus the influence the government may have had upon them acting in that capacity.

But the point is it's pretty well documented now that the propaganda that spewed forth through various media outlets, radio and otherwise in Rwanda, was fundamentally important in inciting the masses to launch these genocidal actions. So that's not a question of military targeting, but it is a very fundamental point with respect to how you can actually prosecute individuals as criminals for this kind of work.

And then secondly just on targeting, the whole issue of radio transmitters in what was then Zaire transmitting additional genocidal hate propaganda back into Rwanda after the summer of 1994 was a very important policy decision in our government because we were under enormous pressure from many circles including many NGOs to take those transmitters out and just do it, whether you do it overtly or covertly, they don't care. They want those things shut down because it was propagating evil.

And believe me, in our legal analysis the issues of what we regard as First Amendment rights but even in an international setting the issue was, can we really take out a propaganda target under these particular circumstances? And the final decision was that we could not under those circumstances. But that's a very debatable proposition still.

ANN COOPER: What specific circumstances?

DAVID SCHEFFER: Well first of all, it was on the sovereign territory that created its own complications. We would be launching a military action on Zaire territory. And the other question was simply if you look at the totality of the views coming out over those transmitters what portion of it would you say is evil propaganda and what portion of it is perhaps legitimate news? Big issue.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: Ann, did you have a follow-up to that?

ANN COOPER: Actually, I wanted to get back to this question about what technology is going to do to journalism. And it sounds to me like you're suggesting that perhaps more controls of some sort are going to be needed.

DAVID SCHEFFER: I don't think you can. I don't think technology is going to permit controls. China is trying real hard right now to control technology. I don't think that's going to be the future. I think that the future is going to be that the military needs to change -- do you fight differently if both sides know exactly what the other side is doing, be it through their own systems or through third-party journalist systems.

I think it is going to be absolutely if not physically impossible politically impossible to control the flow of information technology. Already there is one-meter capable satellites up there for the highest bidder. And that's going to have a lot of impact and you can't control that. There are guys who think they can, but I don't think that that's possible.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: We're already a half hour over time so I'm just going to quickly leap through a bunch of questions. Who wanted to ask on this topic? Just one question on this topic and then we're going to go to Roy on another topic.

A PARTICIPANT: Ambassador Scheffer hit exactly what I wanted to ask but I still have a question to ask trying to draw the distinction in applying international law on the distinction between bombing radio television Serbia and bombing radio Rwanda in the midst of its incitement. Does Professor Anderson accept then that that would be an acceptable target that eventually would not be considered to be a violation or would go beyond propaganda?

KEN ANDERSON: Well, I think part of the legal issue here is going to revolve around whether one thinks that what was going on in Kosovo was, in fact, genocide or incitement to genocide versus what was going on in Rwanda. I don't think that there's a serious argument at this point that what Kosovo was about was genocide. But others may disagree with that. So I think that there's a legal difference there in terms of what was actually being incited to and what the circumstances were. I think that it's debatable at this point that even accepting Tony's point that you might have people that might be tried afterwards for incitement for genocide. I think that still a very far stretch both legally and practically to make a determination that one can go afterwards and try somebody for actions that won them documents later on versus deciding that one can target them in the midst of the war as a targeting decision.

Now, I understand that accepted in Rwanda where one has got plain circumstances of genocide that doing it in the midst of the war including targeting of people who are engaged in it. That I can actually accept as a legal matter. I think there are questions about that that are very serious.

But I think that it's crossing some kind of boundary to think that the targeting decisions of the folks who are trying to make assessments that in the normal legal course of events are asking themselves, what contribution does this facility make to the actual prosecution of our war effort in the most concrete terms?

I mean, when you talk to the International Committee of the Red Cross they want to see standards which are tactically related to the actual battlefield, the actual circumstances going on now. I accept fully Tony's characterization of the role that the media plays in the Milosevic regime.

But I think that it would be suitable for an article in, say, an academic magazine rather than a basis for determining that this actually has the following kind of tactical effect on the ground. What I understand that the ICRC in sort of discussing these things as what I take to be the standards that I look to for these things, it wants to see things which are very concretely related to physical "this facility to taking out this location in this battle going on now."

But I think that that's the safest, most practical and in some sense the most morally nuanced thing to do. Even if I accept the overall argument that these people do have an enormous culpability, accepting the case of plain straightforward genocide as what went on in Rwanda I would rather save them to get tried afterwards.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: All right. Roy?

ROY GUTMAN: I wanted to come back to Sierra Leone. I don't know that I've ever seen a panel quite as strong as this one. We have so many experts together who might be able to pronounce on something that's happening right in front of us. And realizing that you don't have to give the official position unless you have one. But what's going on right now is they've taken in U.N. peacekeepers who were sent there by the Security Council, the rebels or the government -- how do we describe them now? -- they've taken over U.N. vehicles.

So are there some specific war crimes that you could point to? I mean, are these not prescribed under international law? Aren't there some norms that you might want to bring to bear or are there some that you would bring to bear on what is happening right now in front of us?

DAVID SHEFFER: Well, may I take the first crack? Colonel, do you want to? I'll take the first crack at this. Clearly not only are violations of the Lome Peace Accords occurring. That was an agreement that was arrived at between the parties. And those violations are clearly taking place at this time. But in addition to that, since there is not at least as I would view it an armed conflict that is defined as being present between the U.N. peacekeeping force which is there for purposes defined by the Security Council and the rebel forces. The rebel forces have no justification whatsoever to take what would normally be under the Geneva Conventions prisoners of war. There is simply no basis for that in Sierra Leone.

So we're looking at a kidnapping hostage-taking situation which is in violation of international humanitarian law and certainly the execution of U.N. peacekeepers under these circumstances is a clear violation.

I would also point you to two documents. One, the U.N. Convention for the Protection for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Workers. That's not the precise title but it's the 1994 convention I believe it is that establishes a clear set of norms with respect to the protection of U.N. personnel and humanitarian personnel on the ground.

I think that it can be fairly argued that a lot of that has evolved into and reflects customary practice and law with respect to how U.N. peacekeeping forces should be handled in the field. I would also say that in the negotiation for the permanent international criminal court there is a war crime negotiated in that document. And remember, every single crime that is listed in that document is regarded as being derived from customary and international law and it's the policy of the United States that it reflects customary and international law.

And there's a very clear provision in that statute which would clearly prohibit this kind of activity. So it is prohibited and of course those who engage in it are at clear risk judicially first because there's no amnesty that covers it whatsoever.

And secondly, the targets of those actions are actually nationals of other countries who have contributed forces to the U.N. peacekeeping operation. And you can be assured just as if they were American soldiers out there on a peacekeeping operation that those government will begin to examine the laws and what they may be capable of pursuing legally with respect to what has occurred to their nationals in the field of Sierra Leone.

So the judicial web is going to expand I think considerably if this continues because governments who are losing their soldiers there or are in a position of hostage taking with their soldiers are going to responsibly consider not only what are their operational requirements to get those hostages back, but you can be assured that there will be some individuals looking at what are their judicial options in the future.

ELIZABETH NEUFFER: I think at this point I'm going to apologize to those of you who wanted to ask questions. We'll be around I suppose if anyone wants to ask questions afterwards. We are really over time and we're now about to move on to another panel, equally as gripping and equally as good: “War crimes, the elusive story. How do you use the law?” So I invite you all to stick around.

Ann K. Cooper, Bio.
Executive Director, Committee to Protect Journalists

Elizabeth Neuffer, Bio.
"Boston Globe"

James A. Burger (Col. USAF, Ret.),Bio.
Associate Deputy General Counsel, International Affairs, Office of the General Counsel, Department of Defense

Ken Anderson Bio.
Associate Professor of Law, Washington College of Law

David John Scheffer,Bio.
Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues

Charles Dunlap, Bio.
Staff Judge Advocate, U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.

Roy Gutman, Bio.
International Security Reporter, Newsday, President, Crimes of War Project

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