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Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - 9:59 PM
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Yesterday I received an email from the Council on Foreign Relations, announcing the release of a Special Report on "Justice Beyond the Hague: Supporting the Prosecution of International Crimes in National Courts." The author is David A. Kaye of UCLA Law School, and the report is a well-crafted document arguing that the United States, other like-minded countries, and the philanthropic community ought to do more to national courts in other countries, so that they can investigate and prosecute war crimes and other atrocities. To enhance human rights, in short, we ought to help countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or a post-Qadhafi Libya hold former officials accountable for war crimes or other abuses. Money quote:
The United States shuld put national-level justice at the center of its war crimes policy. Internally, the United States should reorganize how it helps other governments develop the capacity to investigate and prosecute such crimes. . . . Externally, the United States should take a leading role in fixing and coordinating a currently dysfunctional international approach to national justice in the wake of atrocities."
Sounds laudable, except the report is almost completely silent on whether the United States also needs to do a much better job of investigating and prosecuting U.S. officials who might be guilty of war crimes themselves. After all, a more-than-plausible case can be made that the Bush administration violated international law when it invaded Iraq in 2003, that top officials engaged in war crimes when they ordered the torture of prisoners, and that U.S. reliance on "targeted killings" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan is also a violation of the laws of war. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know if the officials responsible are guilty or not, but it seems clear that our government is as reluctant to tackle that issue as the ones that the report seeks to help
The CFR report acknowledges this problem only once, commenting on page 22 that "the United States . . . must deal with widely-held perceptions, especially abroad, that it failed to hold its own officials accountable for abuses against suspected terrorism detainees." Fine, we need to "deal with" these perceptions, but that suggests a bit of spin control, rather than asking whether these "perceptions" are valid and whether we ought to be doing something concrete in response. You know, like issuing indictments or at least conducting a serious investigation.
Needless to say, this is the sort of pious moralizing that drives lots of people in other countries crazy. The issue isn't just our reluctance to put former top officials in the dock, it is also our relentless eagerness to preach to others about how they ought to behave, even when we are manifestly unwilling to live up to the same standards ourselves.
By contrast, if the CFR issued a report saying that the US ought to do more to strengthen national courts both overseas and here at home -- even if this meant that a few CFR members might find themselves facing an indictment -- that might raise some eyebrows and force some rethinking. But don't hold your breath.
Nice photo! Bush is trying so damn hard to look serious.
In reality, Bush is as close to a completely empty suit as it gets!
Double standards for the home team
Same deal with Congressmen pressuring Weiner to step down while David Vitter is allowed to remain a Senator after his involvement in physical adultery and prostitution. Similar deal and same result with Clinton. Hypocrisy on both sides.
"…the United States should take a leading role in fixing and coordinating a currently dysfunctional international approach to national justice in the wake of atrocities".
Isn’t is bad enough to have dysfunctional US ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ pervading the world like mould in Stilton without having its selective attitude to ‘atrocities’ included in the bargain?
C'mon Prof. Walt,
If you were a lawyer, you wouldn't lump together the 2003 invasion of Iraq, torture, and the targeted killing of enemy combatants. If you were a lawyer, you might be able to judge for yourself the validity of the others "perceptions" of US conduct.
Maybe next time you can offer an informed opinion on issues of international law?
Disappointing.
I am impressed that a Harvard professor would speak out against a proposal to make local governments emerging from national traumas -- at least one of them (Congo's) involving actual genocide -- better able to prosecute crimes against humanity.
Had space on Stephen Walt's blog permitted, he could have added valuable comments about the good that dictators like Qadhafi and Congolese mass murderers have done, so as to demonstrate even more effectively that there is at least one American who takes a balanced view. He might even have reminded his readers of the disgraceful history behind America's promotion of human rights in the Helsinki agreements of the 1970s, which did so much damage to the Soviet Communists mere years after the United States left Vietnam.
I assume Walt is just getting started, and look forward to his testifying on Ratko Mladic's behalf if that gentleman's trial ever starts. Someone will need to point out the shocking injustice of judging a man who ordered the murder of 8000 people as if everyone else were without sin.
Or at least, you seem to think you are being cute... but in reality, you post shows an inability to grasp basic concepts of writing. You seem to be trying to convey sarcasm, but more than any thing else, the point you are trying to make comes off as just muddled.
Perhaps you should take a freshman comp course and then after a semester come back here and try again!
You suggest, Zathras, that Walt is speaking out against the CFR proposal to support justice systems in other countries. Please read the post again -- he does no such thing.
Dr. Walt instead comes out against "...our relentless eagerness to preach to others about how they ought to behave." Which, although the only hook for his post is the CFR document on making it easier for weak governments emerging from national trauma to prosecute crimes against humanity, is obviously a completely different thing.
We ever live in a virtual space between the way things are and the way they ‘ought’ to be, and preaching to others persuades one of one’s own morality. The phenomenon is found all over from a national level to the anti-gay campaigner in a restroom. There is almost undoubtedly an inverse relationship between the two; the less of one the more of the other.
It would be hopeless (silly?) to expect the CFR to speak out about US war crimes given Kissinger's powerful position there. If I recall correctly K has to be careful where he travels for fear of being arrested for war crimes. As to his powerful position in the Council one needs to Google to find the story of his reaction to the favorable review in the Council's journal, Foreign Affairs, of a book detailing K's activities re Chile under the Allende regime. He basically got the author of the review fired (forced to leave) from his post at the Council, although he found refuge later at the Rockefeller Center at Harvard for a time.
The three horsemen of our warmongering follies.
Stephen, you could edit a volume of these columns under that very title.
Thank you Professor Walt to speaking the truth; at least there is on man in this country that does not tell falsehoods upon falsehoods on an everyday basis.
Regards,
Aurangzeb Khan
lalqila.wordpress.com
I really do not like the policies he has created G.Bush. If selected, I would choose him Bin Clinton another term. Look him change how the United States after eight years of tenure and compared Mr. G.bush. Thank for your post.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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