Pacific News Service, 5 July 2001

U.S.’ Role In Serb Leader’s Trial Makes International Justice System Inevitable

by Andrew Reding

MADRID — In the short run, the transfer of former Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic to await trial on charges of genocide in the Netherlands may seem like a triumph of U.S. diplomacy. It was, after all, the promise of large sums of development aid that caused Serbia to surrender Milosevic to an international court.

Yet there are far bigger forces at play here, whose eventual outcome will be to undermine U.S. efforts to resist the globalization of human rights laws.

Most Americans still see the U.S. as the proverbial city on the hill, whose legal system is, whatever its limitations, so superior to any other as to make submission to any international legal order unthinkable.

That is one reason the U.S. Senate has never ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, and why the Bush administration remains resolute in its opposition to the International Criminal Court.

Another reason is the understandable reluctance of the world’s last remaining superpower to relinquish any of its prerogatives.

Yet in its desire to bring a despised adversary to justice, the U.S. is indirectly validating the emerging international criminal justice system. That is all the more so because Milosevic is being brought before an international tribunal, rather than being brought before a U.S. court, as the senior George Bush did with former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

But that’s just the beginning. The transfer of Milosevic signals the consolidation of the European model of international human rights law. The European Union has used its economic muscle to persuade European countries to abolish the death penalty and submit to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Milosevic’s Yugoslavia was the key holdout.

That has now changed with the power play staged by Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic, who surrendered Milosevic to the international court in The Hague. Pointing out that the government of Yugoslavia has in effect become irrelevant now that it encompasses only Serbia and tiny neighboring Montenegro, Djindjic acted on his own authority as head of the Serbian government. He thus upstaged Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica, just as Russian president Boris Yeltsin once did to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Djindjic made a point of saying that this is just the beginning, signaling that Serbia is opting into the European system. That means Serbia will abolish the death penalty and accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. More broadly, it is, like the rest of Europe, setting international human rights law above the concept of national sovereignty.

What’s more, there is no way of limiting the new paradigm to Europe. International law is built primarily on treaties and precedent. Human rights treaties are already in effect, making certain crimes — including genocide, torture, and politically-motivated murder — international in scope. Now, following the arrests of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and of Milosevic, the precedents of international criminal jurisdiction are also in place.

Washington can do nothing to stop this process. A Belgian court has just sentenced Rwandans to lengthy prison terms for their participation in genocide against ethnic Tutsis. Spanish and Italian judges are seeking extradition of Argentinean torturers. And each case creates additional precedent, further undermining national sovereignty and consolidating the new international legal order.

Because of its key role in the transfer of Milosevic to The Hague, Washington can no longer even complain about this process without seeming hypocritical.

Think about it. There is no stopping the globalization of human rights law. Opposing it makes the U.S. look silly, and suggests Washington is insincere in its advocacy of international human rights.

Bill Clinton did the right thing in signing the Statute of the International Criminal Court in the waning days of his presidency. Is it not time for President George W. Bush and the U.S. Senate to now follow suit with a ratification, enabling the U.S. to join the 36 other countries that have thus far given a definitive NO to impunity for crimes against humanity?

Pacific News Service Associate Editor Andrew Reding directs the Project for Global Democracy and Human Rights of the World Policy Institute, where he is senior fellow for hemispheric affairs.

return to index and cover page