Legal News

The Arrest Warrant of Omar Bashir: The Debate Rages On

By Dan Slater

The government of China and the editorial board of the WSJ have become unlikely (or likely, depending on your view of things) bedfellows in their mutual concern over the International Criminal Court’s decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Bashir. On Monday, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said Bashir “masterminded and implemented” a plan to destroy the three main ethnic groups in Darfur, and formally requested the arrest warrant on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

According to Reuters, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry told a news conference in Beijing that “China expresses grave concern and misgivings about the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s indictment of the Sudanese leader.” The spokesman said that the court’s actions should promote stability and an adequate settlement in Darfur, not the contrary. (China, the WaPo notes, has a vast stake in Sudanese oil, and is also Sudan’s main arms supplier. In other words, the grounds for China’s “grave concern” is suspect.)

The WSJ ed board, however, attacks the ICC’s move on different grounds, and is markedly less reticent in its condemnation. “The International Criminal Court’s decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Bashir is being hailed in the usual places as a landmark in the effort to stop the bloodshed in Darfur,” the editorial begins. “In fact, the indictment is of a piece with the same toothless moral posturing that has already prolonged Darfur’s misery for more than four years.”

Skeptical, the board — noting that the U.S. “has been far more aggressive” than the EU, China and Russia in sanctioning Bashir’s government — says that perhaps Bashir will someday be brought before the ICC to face “its version” of justice. “In that event, we can only hope it doesn’t descend into the five-year carnival that was the ‘trial’ of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. But as with Milosevic, that day will only come after Mr. Bashir has been toppled from power, whether by coup, revolution or foreign intervention.”

Come on, WSJ ed board, tell us what you really think. “If the civilized world is serious about saving Darfur,” the piece continues, “it is toward that end that it must set its sights—and not the false moral comfort of a meaningless indictment from an illegitimate court.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).