Global Issues: Human Rights: ICC’s bench mark ruling convicting Congo War Lord

The conviction of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo by the International Criminal Court is a milestone in the search for international justice. Chatham House’s Elizabeth Wilmshurst provides some expert comment and analysis - [click here]. The trial ends a 10 yesr legal process and is the ICC’s first conviction. Wilsmhurst writes:Lubanga was convicted of the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. Lubanga was the commander of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and its armed wing, the Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo (FPLC), at a time when many armed conflicts were taking place in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The trial chamber, presided over by British judge, Sir Adrian Fulford, found that Lubanga had encouraged children to join the army and had personally used them among his bodyguards. He and others had participated in a common plan to build an army so that the UPC/FPLC could maintain political and military control over Ituri, a plan which resulted in the recruitment of children, whether voluntarily or by coercion, and their use in various ways in the hostilities.

However, does this herald a new dawn in upholding and enforcing international justice. Well enthusiasm needs to be curbed…some critical comment is proved in the Econmist, which argues that:Since it was set up in 2002 to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the court has been lambasted for its glacial slowness. Some critics cry bias, too: all 15 cases now before it concern African countries: Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan (Darfur), Kenya, Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. Yet—except in Kenya—the court intervened either because the countries themselves asked it to, or because there had been a UN Security Council resolution.

The court’s statutes say it may take on only those cases where the country concerned is either unwilling or unable to do so. That, sadly, applies to many African states, where courts are still woefully partial, corrupt or otherwise inadequate. And Africa is also the scene of the sort of wars that bring the atrocities over which the ICC has jurisdiction. Of the 120 countries that have now signed up to the court 33—the biggest single group—are from Africa.

One of the difficulties faced by the court is its lack of any kind of enforcement mechanism. It has to rely on its individual members to arrest and hand over suspects, as required under its statutes. Some African states have proved unwilling to do so, however. Indeed, the African Union has specifically ordered its 54 members not to co-operate with the allegedly pro-Western ICC’s arrest warrant for Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, one of only two sitting presidents ever charged by the court. The other was Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

Further comment can be found here: Economist: Bench mark: ICC’s first verdict