Employment with criminal justice degree

Address by U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues at the Peace Palace. The Hague, Netherlands.

I am very pleased to be here this afternoon to address this distinguished audience about the future of international criminal justice. My appointment by President Clinton and by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the new position in the U.S. Government of Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues reflects their strong commitment to pursue the investigation and prosecution of individuals charged with the heinous international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The challenge is, regrettably, global in scope. In our times, these crimes are the trademark of the former Yugoslavia, of Rwanda and Central Africa, of Cambodia, of Iraq, and other regions of the world. I hold no illusions about the obstacles that lie ahead, but I know our generation must not fail to take up this challenge. Impunity and retribution are the enemies of our future; only through international justice can these scourges be overcome.

Within these walls resides the most visible source of modern public international law. Since its construction in 1913, the Peace Palace has been the forum where the precedents of international litigation have often been framed. Here, states have sought to resolve their disputes peacefully, even though unprecedented warfare among nations has often tested the purpose of this building.

Those who work in the Peace Palace know that it is a very 20th-century notion that through peaceful interstate dispute settlement, the rule of law would prevail. Yet, with the exception of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following World War II, there has been very little attempt to hold individuals accountable for major international crimes in any international forum. The shield of sovereignty which, after all, is the bedrock of international law, and the Cold War, prevented the best-intentioned architects of the post-war international system from extending accountability or enforcement beyond state responsibility to those individuals who are the most egregious violators of international law.

Last week I visited a site in Rwanda called "Ntarama." There, on April 15, 1994, more than 5,000 men, women, and children were viciously murdered. I stood among the living dead, among scattered skulls and bones and bloodstained clothing on the floor of a Catholic church, where the victims thought they would find refuge from the genocidaire. Hundreds of skulls blanketed a shack nearby. What happened at Ntarama was not the simultaneous extermination of thousands; it was not genocide with the drop of a gas canister into the well of a chamber packed with humans whose terrified eyes need never haunt the executioner. At Ntarama, and throughout Rwanda in the spring of 1994, genocide was murder in the first degree--victim by victim, with machete, club, hoe, spear, automatic rifle, or gasoline-fueled fire--bonding executioner and victim to within inches of each other.

A survivor of the massacre, a 37-year-old mother who had collapsed under the weight of the slaughtered corpses and whose entire family perished in the church, guided me through the carnage of Ntarama. We walked among her dead children's skulls. She pleaded softly for those responsible to be brought to justice. But she also said that if justice could be rendered, she could live with her neighbors again. And then she breast-fed her newborn infant with a tenderness that spoke volumes. She showed me the courage of a Rwandan woman who lost everything except the miracle of the human spirit.

Our common challenge is to ensure that the enforcement of international criminal law in the 21st century fulfills the expectations of both those who codified it in this century and the survivor of Ntarama. The international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda are important tests of our resolve to take up that challenge. They are novel judicial institutions which remain experiments and, hence, require our constant attention and support. No engineers would abandon a project just because their first efforts failed to achieve instant perfection. Neither should the international community abandon the first prototypes of international criminal justice in the post-Cold War era.

There is much skepticism about the future of the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals. I have just returned from a two-week review of the operations of both tribunals. I want to share with you some observations about the most troubled institution; namely, the Rwanda Tribunal. It is back on track. After a year of intensive scrutiny by the UN Inspector General, a highly critical report issued by him last February, and months of reform initiatives and staff changes, the Rwanda Tribunal is beginning to show potential for achieving its original purpose--the prosecution of the leaders of the 1994 genocide. There is much reform yet to accomplish, hilt the course has been set.

The fact is that the Rwanda Tribunal has more indictees--of greater relative stature--in custody than does the Yugoslav Tribunal. I visited the UN detention facility in Arusha where 21 of 53 cells are occupied by 15 indictees and six accused awaiting indictment. I saw such former Rwandan leaders as Theoneste Bagasora, George Rutaganda, Jean Kambanda, and Pauline Nyiramashuhuko sitting in their cells surrounded by books and files in preparation for their trials. Gratien Kabiligi, a notorious young colonel in the Rwandan Army, who allegedly went on to terrorize his people in the refugee camps in East Congo, was mopping his floor. There remain eight indictees at large who must be found and apprehended. Deputy Prosecutor Muna has not forgotten them. There are many more leaders and strategists of the genocide who are suspects and likely candidates for indictment.

So, despite 32 available cells today, more cells probably will have to be built next year to accommodate new indictees. Three major trials are underway this year. More trials are forthcoming, including Nuremberg-style joint trials where influential defendants from government and business will be joined to show how finely tuned was the orchestration of the genocide throughout Rwandan society.

The new Deputy Prosecutor of the Rwanda Tribunal, Bernard Muna from Cameroon, has shown in his first few months a determination to pursue vigorously the prosecution of the masters of genocide in Rwanda. We need to give Mr. Muna a chance to prove himself. He already has effected the arrest of seven indictees and suspects in Kenya; produced a new strategy for prosecution, namely, to group many indictees together for joint trials; and reorganized and increased the size of the Deputy Prosecutor's Office in Kigali. Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, who selected Mr. Muna, has been deeply engaged herself in developing the new prosecution strategy and in upgrading the entire operation of the Rwanda Tribunal.

A second courtroom at the Arusha headquarters is being constructed and should be completed soon. The hiring of a large number of investigators and prosecuting attorneys is underway. We consider it exceedingly disruptive, however, that trials are still being suspended for months at a time--a fact that, indeed, delays justice needlessly. We trust this rather unfortunate practice of the Rwanda tribunal will be ended soon.

The Yugoslav Tribunal faces a more desperate problem. It needs in custody more indictees, particularly the leaders of the genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity that ravaged Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia for so many years. All of us are impatient for this to happen. But it will. As Secretary Albright has said, there is no statute of limitations on these crimes or on our determination to see justice done. The United States Government is totally committed to strengthen the capabilities of the Yugoslav Tribunal and to pressure the regional authorities in order to accomplish the arrest and prosecution of the indictees. The NATO-led Stabilization Force, or SFOR, can assist within its agreed-upon rules of engagement and did so in Prijedor recently. The "outer wall" of sanctions surrounding Serbia-Montenegro remains standing, and economic assistance to noncooperating parties of the Dayton accords will remain unavailable.

For all of the theory and jurisprudential underpinnings of each International Tribunal, however--which make these institutions so intellectually challenging for international and criminal lawyers--there are operational issues which needlessly hamper the tribunals' efficient operations. Unless these issues are resolved, the theory and precedent essential to a lasting jurisprudence risks being buried under the weight of bureaucracy.