Bernard Kouchner, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, called on France to establish a special body to investigate and eventually prosecute international war crimes, crimes against humanity, etc.
According
to Le Monde (26 May 2008), the French Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Bernard Kouchner, suggested that France establish a special body to investigate
and eventually prosecute international war crimes, crimes against humanity,
etc. Unlike Belgium, for example, French law doesn’t include “universal
competence” and French courts can judge only crimes that are either committed
in France or if the victims are French.
The
concept of “universal competence” assumes that the whole international
community bears responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and
no state can claim “it is none of my business, it was committed elsewhere.” One
of the lessons from the Fascist barbarism is the mutual responsibility of the
Human community in protecting basic human rights over the whole planet. These
rights were formalized during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and a long series of United
Nations resolutions that gradually extended the concepts of Right and rights to
a growing number of communities (women, national minorities, cultural
minorities, children, etc.).
One
can claim that most of these rights remained on the paper, and were not
seriously implemented by the community of nations. However, the very fact that
these rights have been formally stated is not without significance: a
society with norms of behavior—even when they are not implemented—is what
distinguishes the beginning of civilization from the jungle, for in the jungle
it is only might that makes right, though we will be able to claim that we live
in a truly civilized human society only when these rights are universally put
into practice and not merely normative declarations.
In
the last two decades, the US neoconservatives have been trying to close the
post-fascist era, and to cancel the normative framework elaborated as a
reaction to Fascism. Under the pretext of “defending civilization from
international terrorism,” they attempt to make the war policies of the Empire
free from any limits based on respect for Human Rights.
No
doubt, the suggestion of the founder of Physicians without Borders, who is now
working for the ultra-conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is a
positive step. On one very important condition: that the implementation of
Human Rights by the international community will not be selective, and address
only those nations that will be declared “non-democratic” by a select club of states.
The
investigation of states and their eventual prosecution should be the
prerogative of an independent international tribunal, established by the United
Nations General Assembly, and not by a coalition of self-appointed states that
will decide a-priori who is violating the law and who is not.
The
good faith of Bernard Kouchner can be easily tested: the International Tribunal
of The Hague has ruled the illegality of the Apartheid Wall built by the Israel
government, and has made a series of practical recommendations, starting with
its dismantling and the payment of compensation for damages made up to the
present. The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed these
recommendations. If the French Foreign Ministry is sincere in its will to
enforce international law over the planet, he should initiate an international
effort to force Israel to implement the Hague ruling. As a first step, France
should demand the suspension of all the economic and trade privileges that
Israel is getting from its association with the European Union, until it will
implement the decisions of the International Tribunal. It is a matter of common
sense, but above all, a way to say loudly and clearly that our world is not a
jungle where might is right, but a civilized framework where a blatant
violation of the Right is punished.
Frankly,
I doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy’s Foreign Minister will make even one small step
in that direction.
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