Darfur and the limits of legal deterrence

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 30, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 529-560

  Rodman, Kenneth A ^a  

^a Colby College   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CRIME; LEGAL SYSTEM; SOCIAL JUSTICE; VIOLENCE;

AFRICA; BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA; DARFUR; EAST AFRICA; EURASIA; EUROPE; SOUTHERN EUROPE; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; SUDAN;

EID: 49749126737     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.0.0012     Document Type: Article

References (184)

1. Prosecutor's Quarterly 30 (2008) 529-56
2. Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary General, Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1564 of 18 Sept. 2004, 25 Jan. 2005, ¶ 569.
3. Press Release, Human Rights Watch, U.N. Security Council Refers Darfur to the ICC Historic Step Toward Justice; Further Protection Measures Needed (31 Mar. 2005), available at http://hrw.org/english/docs/ 2005/03/31/sudan10408.htm.
4. David Mozersky, Accountability in Darfur, INSTITUTE OF WAR & PEACE REPORTING (27 Feb. 2007), available at http:// www.iwpr.net.
5. See THOMAS C. SCHELLING, ARMS AND INFLUENCE (1966);
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7. ALEXANDER L. GEORGE, FORCEFUL PERSUASION: COERCIVE DIPLOMACY AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO WAR (1991).
8. See SCHELLING, supra note 5, at 69-86.
9. Id.at ch. 1.
10. Id. at 4
11. GEORGE, HALL & SIMONS, supra note 5, at 288.
12. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, pmbl., U.N. Doc. A/ Conf.183/9 (1998).
13. On the distinction between general and specific deterrence, see Payam Akhavan, Justice in The Hague, Peace in the Former Yugoslavia? A Commentary on the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, 20 HUM. RTS. Q. 746 (1998).
14. See Citizens for Global Solutions, Darfur and the ICC: Justice is the Key to Recovery, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS Q. 4 (2006), available at http://www.globalsolutions.org/publications/ publications_darfur_and_icc;
15. see generally Citizens for Global Solutions, In Uncharted Waters: Seeking Justice Before The Atrocities Have Stopped, The International Criminal Court in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS Q. 9 (2004), available at http: //www.globalsolutions.org/files/general/press/pdfs/uncharted_waters.pdf.
16. Human Rights Watch Policy Paper: The Meaning of "The Interests of Justice" in Article 53 of the Rome Statute, 15 (June 2005), available at www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/docs/ij070505.pdf.
17. See Ruti Teitel, Bringing the Messiah Through the Law, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN POLITICAL TRANSITIONS: GETTYSBURG TO BOSNIA 177-80 (Carla Hesse & Robert Post eds., 1999).
18. Cited in PAUL R. WILLIAMS & MICHAEL P. SCHARF, PEACE WITH JUSTICE? WAR CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA 99 (2002). This followed warnings from the Security Council of criminal prosecution for criminal acts going back to July 1992.
19. RACHEL KERR, THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA: AN EXERCISE IN LAW, POLITICS, AND DIPLOMACY 33 (2004).
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21. GARY JONATHAN BASS, STAY THE HAND OF VENGEANCE: THE POLITICS OF WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS 229-31 (2000).
22. Christopher Rudolph, Constructing an Atrocities Regime: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals, 55 INT'L ORC. 655, 684 (2001).
23. Teitel, supra note 14, at 178.
24. For an analysis of the political motives of Western governments in creating the ICTY, see David P. Forsythe, International Criminal Courts: A Political View, 15 NETH. Q. HUM. RTS. 5 (1997).
25. Anonymous, Human Rights in Peace Negotiations, 18 HUM. RTS. Q. 249 (1996).
26. JAMES GOW, TRIUMPH OF THE LACK OF WILL: INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND THE YUGOSLAV WAR 37-38 (1997).
27. Id. at 145-55.
28. Teitel, supra note 14, at 180.
29. Theodor Meron, From Nuremberg to The Hague, 149 MILITARY L. REV. 107, 111 (1995).
30. Richard Goldstone, Bringing War Criminals to Justice during an Ongoing War in HARD CHOICES: MORAL DILEMMAS IN HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 202 Jonathan Moore ed., 1998).
31. SCHILLING, supra note 5, at 69.
32. On the distinction between brute force and coercion, see id. ch. 1.
33. See Human Rights Watch, UN Role in Sierra Leone Peace Deal Condemned (8 July 1999);
34. Confronting War Crimes in Africa, Subcomm. on Africa, H. Comm. on Int'l Relations, 108th Cong. 22-24 (2004) (statement of Corinne Dufka, Senior Researcher and West Africa Team Leader, Human Rights Watch).
35. JAMES TRAUB, THE BEST INTENTIONS: KOFI ANNAN AND THE UN IN THE ERA OF AMERICAN WORLD POWER 117-22 (2006).
36. GEORGE, FORCEFUL PERSUASION, supra note 5, at 11.
37. Nicholas J. Wheeler & Tim Dunne, East Timor and the New Humanitarian Interventionism, 77 INT'L AFF. 818-20 (2001).
38. TRAUB, supra note 30, at 103-08.
39. GEORGE, FORCEFUL PERSUASION, supra note 5, at 5.
40. Steven L. Burg, Coercive Diplomacy in the Balkans: The U.S. Use of Force in Bosnia and Kosovo, in THE UNITED STATES AND COERCIVE DIPLOMACY 65-66 (Robert J. Art & Patrick M. Cronin eds., 2003).
41. GEORCE, FORCEFUL PERSUASION, supra note 5, at 13.
42. During the peace negotiations, Hobrooke showed Milošević the CIA file documenting his communications with Arkan, one of the most vicious Serb paramilitary leaders, in order to press him to crack down on the Bosnian Serbs, over whom he had more control than he claimed. This evidence was not shared with Goldstone to build a legal case against Milošević for his complicity with criminal violence in Bosnia. See PIERRE HAZAN, JUSTICE IN A TIME OF WAR: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA 192 (2004);
43. BASS, supra note 17, at 236-37.
44. Kenneth Roth, Sidelined on Human Rights, 77 FOREIGN AFF. 5 (1998).
45. See Akhavan, supra note 11, at 738-39;
46. comments by Richard Goldstone in Amnesty International, Open Letter to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court: Comments on the Concept of the Interests of Justice 7-8 (17 June 2005).
47. Human Rights Watch Policy Paper: The Meaning of "The Interests of Justice" in Article 53 of the Rome Statute (June 2005), available at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/docs/ij070505.pdf.
48. See GEORGE, FORCEFUL PERSUASION, supra note 5, at 71.
49. See DEREK H. CHOLLET, THE ROAD TO THE DAYTON ACCORDS: A STUDY OF AMERICAN STATECRAFT 59, 198-200 (2005);
50. BASS, supra note 17, at 232-39.
51. Burg, supra note 35, at 94-96.
52. WILLIAMS & SCHARF, supra note 15, at 151-69.
53. SCHELLING, supra note 5, at 74.
54. WILLIAMS & SCHARF, supra note 15, at 161-66.
55. Id. at 26, 160-61.
56. Paul R. Williams & Patricia Taft, The Role of Justice in the Former Yugoslavia: Antidote or Placebo for Coercive Appeasement, 35 CASE WESTERN RESERVE L. REV. 219, 232 (2003).
57. WILLIAMS & SCHARF, supra note 15, at 126-27, 159.
58. Id. at 156;
59. See also Williams & Taft, supra note 48, at 222.
60. David Rohde suggests that allowing the war to continue might have weakened Milošević's grip on power in DAVID ROHDE, ENDGAME: THE BETRAYAL AND FALL OF SREBRENICA, EUROPE'S WORST MASSACRE SINCE WORLD WAR II 340 (1997).
61. WILLIAMS & SCHARF, supra note 15, at 120-21.
62. CHOLLET, supra note 42, at 97-98.
63. One ICTY official interviewed by Bass, acknowledged this constraint: "You have two options ... A, you can indict Milošević and be shut down. B, or you can do low-level [indictments] and do a few trials, like Mladić and Karadžić." Cited in BASS, supra note 17, at 229.
64. HAZAN, supra note 37, at 192.
65. Id.
66. On the failure of deterrence and coercive diplomacy in the period leading up to the Kosovo war, see Burg, supra note 35, at 70-84.
67. For an overview, see GERARD PRUNIER, DARFUR: THE AMBIGUOUS GENOCIDE 61-88 (2007).
68. JULIE FLINT & ALEX DE WAAL, DARFUR: A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG WAR 99-100 (2005).
69. PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 97.
70. Id. at 103.
71. FLINT & DE WAAL, supra note 59, at 39.
72. ADAM LEBOR, "COMPLICITY WITH EVIL": THE UNITED NATIONS IN THE ACE OF MODERN GENOCIDE 141 (2006).
73. CHERYL O. IGIRI & PRINCETON N. LYMAN, GIVING MEANING TO "NEVER AGAIN": SEEKING AN EFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS IN DARFUR AND BEYOND 5-6 (2004), available at http://www.cfr. org/publication/7402/giving_meaning_to_never_again.html.
74. PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 107.
75. TRAUB, supra note 30, at 219.
76. Id. at 220-21.
77. LEBOR, supra note 63, at 195.
78. PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 139.
79. S.C. Res. 1547, U.N. SCOR, 4988th mtg., ¶ 7, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1547 (2004).
80. Nsongurua J. Udombana, When Neutrality is a Sin: The Darfur Crisis and the Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention in Sudan, 27 HUM. RTS. Q. 1149, 1181-82 (2005).
81. S.C. Res. 1556, U.N. SCOR, 5015th mtg., ¶ 6, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1556 (2004).
82. Alex Bellamy, Responsibility to Protect or Trojan Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq, 19 ETHICS & INT'L AFF. 31, 43 (2005).
83. S.C. Res. 1556, supra note 72, ¶ 7.
84. Bellamy, supra note 73, at 41.
85. IGIRI & LYMAN, supra note 64, at 16.
86. Bellamy, supra note 73, at 45.
87. Alex J. Bellamy & Paul D. Williams, The UN Security Council and the Question of Humanitarian Intervention in Darfur, 5 J. MIL. ETHICS 153-54 (2006).
88. IGIRI & LYMAN, supra note 64, at 17.
89. The Current Situation in Sudan and the Prospects for Peace: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on Foreign Relations, 108th Cong. 9 (2004) (statement of Colin Powell, Secretary of State of the United States).
90. Id.
91. Bellamy, supra note 73, at 46.
92. S.C. Res. 1565, U.N. SCOR, 5040th mtg., ¶ ¶ 2, 7, 9, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1565 (2004).
93. FLINT & DE WAAL, supra note 59, at 128.
94. S.C. Res. 1565, supra note 83, ¶ 12.
95. Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary General, Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1564 of 18 September 2004, supra note 2, at ¶ ¶ 507-18.
96. The report acknowledged that some government officials and militia leaders may have acted with genocidal intent, but that could only be determined by a competent court. Id. ¶ 520.
97. Id. ¶ 522.
98. Id. ¶ ¶ 571-72.
99. Bellamy & Williams, supra note 78, at 155.
100. Warren Hoge, US Lobbies UN on Darfur and International Court, N.Y. TIMES, 29 Jan. 2005, at A8.
101. Colum Lynch, U.S. Urges War Crimes Tribunal for Wartime Atrocities, WASH. POST, 28 Jan. 2005, at A23.
102. Juan Mendez, Action is Needed to Resolve Darfur Crisis, FINANCIAL TIMES, 7 Mar. 2005, at 15.
103. Bellamy & Williams, supra note 78, at 155.
104. Adele Waugaman, The United States in Darfur: Trapped by "Genocide," INT'L JUST. TRIBUNE, N. 36, 21 Nov. 2005.
105. Robert Cryer, Sudan, Resolution 1593, and International Criminal Justice, 19 LEIDEN INT'L L. 195, 222 (2006).
106. Elise Keppler & Yolanda J. Revilla, Council Makes Historic Referral on Darfur to ICC, 29 ICC MONITOR 1 (2005).
107. First Report of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo, to the Security Council Pursuant to UNSCR 1593 (2005), at 5 (29 June 2005).
108. Mendez, supra note 92.
109. See also Press Release, Human Rights Watch, UN: Pass Resolution to Refer Darfur to ICC, 25 Mar. 2005, available at hrw.org/english/docs/ 2005/03/25/sudan 10371.htm.
110. See Samantha Power, Court of First Resort, N.Y. TIMES , 10 Feb. 2005, at A1;
111. Kenneth Roth, Bring the Darfur Killers to the World Court, FINANCIAL TIMES, 18 Nov. 2004, at 15.
112. Quoted in Nicholas Kristof, Why Should We Shield the Killers? N.Y. TIMES, 2 Feb. 2005, at A21.
113. Roth, Bring the Darfur Killers, supra note 99.
114. S.C. Res. 1591, SCOR, 5153rd mtg., U.N. Doc. S/RES/1591 (2005).
115. David Zweig & Bi Jianhi, China's Global Hunt for Energy, 84 FOREIGN AFF. 25, 32 (Sept.-Oct. 2005).
116. IGIRI & LYMAN, supra note 64, at 24.
117. S.C. Res. 1591, supra note 102, ¶ 3.
118. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, GETTING THE UN INTO DARFUR 6-7 (12 Oct. 2006).
119. Paul D. Williams, Military Responses to Mass Killing: The African Union Mission in Sudan, 13 INT'L PEACEKEEPING 174 (2006).
120. Lydia Polgreen, U.N. Council Votes to Send Troops to Darfur; Sudan Objects, N.Y. TIMES, 1 Sept. 2006, at A3.
121. CENTER ON INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, ANNUAL REVIEW OF GLOBAL PEACE OPERATIONS 77-78 (2008), available at http://www.nyu.edu /pages/cic/internationalsecurity/docs/Final2008briefingreport.pdf.
122. Lydia Polgreen, Peacekeeping in Darfur Hits More Obstacles, N.Y. TIMES, 24 Mar. 2008, at A1;
123. Warren Hoge, U.N. Officials Tell of Impasse in Darfur Peacekeeping Task, N.Y. TIMES, 9 Feb. 2008, at A5.
124. Security Council Refers Darfur Crimes to the ICC, IRIN NEWS , 1 Apr. 2005, available at http://www.irinnews.org/ report.aspx?reportid=53691.
125. See International Crisis Group, Darfur: Revitalizing the Peace Process, Africa Report No. 125, 30 Apr. 2007, at 3-4;
126. PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 179-80.
127. After Darfur's Deal, AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL, 4 Aug. 2006, at 5.
128. See Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary General, Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1564 of 18 September 2004, supra note 2, ¶ ¶ 533-63;
129. Human RightsWatch, Darfur Documents Confirm Government Policy of Militia Support, Briefing Paper, 19 July 2004;
130. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ENTRENCHING IMPUNITY: GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR INTERNATIONAL CRIMES IN DARFUR 48-63 (Dec. 2005).
131. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, GETTING THE UN INTO DARFUR, supra note 106, at 7-9.
132. Id. at 9-10.
133. ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT (EIU), SUDAN, COUNTRY REPORT 8 (Feb. 2008).
134. EIU, SUDAN, COUNTRY REPORT 4 (Feb. 2007).
135. EIU, SUDAN, COUNTRY REPORT 22 (Dec. 2006).
136. See Bellamy, supra note 73, at 34-36.
137. See DAVID C. GOMPERT, COURTNEY RICHARDSON, RICHARD L. KUGLER, & CLIFFORD H. BERNATH, CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY. LEARNING FROM DARFUR: BUILDING A NET-CAPABLE AFRICAN FORCE TO STOP MASS KILLING (July 2005), available at www.ndu.edu /CTNSP/Def_Tech/DTP%2015%20Darfur.pdf.
138. Former Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Susan E. Rice, Interviewed on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, 17 Nov. 2006.
139. Susan E. Rice, Anthony Lake & Donald M. Payne, We Saved Europeans. Why Not Africans?, WASH. POST, 2 Oct. 2006, at A19.
140. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, GETTING THE UN INTO DARFUR, supra note 106, at 11.
141. Lee Feinstein, Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities, in BEYOND HUMANITARIANISM: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AFRICA AND WHY IT MATTERS 100, 109-10 (Princeton N. Lyman & Patricia Dorff eds., 2007).
142. Alex J. Bellamy, Whither the Responsibility to Protect? Humanitarian Intervention and the 2005 World Summit, 20 ETHICS & INT'L AFF. 143, 144 (2006).
143. For an overview of the "restrictionist approach," see NICHOLAS J. WHEELER, SAVING STRANGERS: HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY 41 (2000).
144. William A. Schabas, Darfur and the 'Odious Scourge': The Commission of Inquiry's Findings on Genocide, 18 LEIDEN J. INT'L L. 871, 883 (2005).
145. Id. at 882, 883.
146. PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 88.
147. Id. at 89-91.
148. Id. at 138-40;
149. see also LEBOR, supra note 63, at 185, on the initial US reluctance to raise the Darfur issue in the United Nations.
150. See Maggie Farley, UN Sanctions Four in Darfur Case, L. A. TIMES, 26 Apr. 2006, at A17;
151. Elizabeth Rubin, If Not Peace, Then Justice, N. Y. TIMES MAG. , 2 Apr. 2006, at 42.
152. For contrasting views on this, see CHRISTINE GRAY, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE USE OF FORCE 26-35, 191-95 (2000);
153. but see WHEELER, supra note 127, at 154-69, 265-67.
154. Michael Walzer, The Politics of Rescue, 62 SOCIAL RESEARCH 53-66 (1995);
155. For a more systematic analysis of the difference between Darfur and Iraq in terms of criteria for humanitarian intervention, see Aux J. BELLAMY, JUST WARS: FROM CICERO TO IRAQ 219-26 (2006).
156. Gareth Evans, From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect, 24 Wisc. INT'L L. J. 703, 717 (2006).
157. Schabas, supra note 128, at 885.
158. Their arguments are summarized in Heikelina Verrijn Stuart, Arbourand Cassese Criticize the ICC in Darfur, INT'L JUST. TRIB., N. 55, 23 Oct. 2006.
159. Antonio Cassese, Is the ICC Still Having Teething Problems?, 4 J. INT'L CRIM. JUST. 434, 439 (2006);
160. see also Franck Petit, The "Small Steps" Strategy of the ICC in Darfur, INT'L JUST. TRIB., N. 63, 5 Mar. 2007 (interviewing Cassese about the ICC prosecutions).
161. Cassese, supra note 139, at 439.
162. John Prendergast & Colin Thomas-Jenson, Blowing the Horn, 86 FOREIGN AFF. 59, 72-73 (2007).
163. Robert S. Litwak, REGIME CHANGE: U.S. STRATEGY THROUGH THE PRISM OF 9/11 181 (2007).
164. Frederic Bichon, ICC Vows to Bring Darfur War Criminals to Justice, AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, 24 Feb. 2008;
165. see also Marlise Simons, Sudan Poses First Big Trial for World Criminal Court, N.Y. TIMES, 29 Apr. 2005, at A12;
166. Marlise Simons, Two Face Trials at The Hague over Atrocities in Darfur N.Y. TIMES, 28 Feb. 2007, at A3.
167. Current Situation in Darfur: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 110th Cong. 25-26 (2007) (statement of Alex de Waal, Director, Social Science Research Council),
168. Id. at 33;
169. see also Alex de Waal, The Wars of Sudan, NATION, 19 Mar. 2007, at 16.
170. Pablo Castillo, Rethinking Deterrence: The International Criminal Court in Sudan, UNISCI DISCUSSION PAPERS, Jan. 2007, at 167, 170.
171. HAZAN, supra note 3 7, at 191.
172. DAVID KENNEDY, THE DARK SIDES OF VIRTUE: REASSESSING INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIANISM 31 (2004).
173. Id. at 129.
174. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ENTRENCHING IMPUNITY, supra note 114, at 52.
175. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LACK OF CONVICTION: THE SPECIAL CRIMINAL COURT ON THL EVENTS IN DARFUR 4 (2006).
176. This same attribution of impunity to the failure to prosecute informs Schabas's treatment of the case, though he is less definitive in dismissing Sudan's efforts to establish accountability mechanisms than is Human Rights Watch or the ICC Prosecutor. After citing Sudan's assertion that it was prosecuting crimes in Darfur in response to Moreno-Ocampo's June 2006 report to the Security Council, he suggests: "It may well be that, spurred by the Security Council referral, Sudan is doing an adequate job of addressing impunity. If that is the case, then the Court will have succeeded." WILLIAM A. SCHABAS , AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, 178 (3d ed. 2007).
177. See PRUNIER, supra note 58, at 105;
178. FLINT & DE WAAL, supra note 59, at 24-25.
179. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ENTRENCHING IMPUNITY, supra note 114, at 5, 58-63.
180. Id. at 3.
181. Quoted in Eric Reeves, The ICC "Application" Concerning International Crimes in Darfur, SUDAN TRIB., 27 Feb. 2007, available at http://www.sudantribune.com /spip.php?article20496.
182. For more on the contradictions in Human Rights Watch's advocacy and analysis, see Eric Reeves, Khartoum Triumphant: Intl community has failed to prevent, punish genocide, SUDAN TRIB., 17 Dec. 2005, available at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article13092.
183. Cryer, supra note 95, at 195, 222.
184. Akhavan, supra note 11, at 746.