The 2001 Quaker Peace Roundtable:
Workshop Number 10: War Crimes Trials vs. Truth Commissions: Justice or Peace
after Massive Violence and Human Rights Abuse
Helena Cobban, internationally renowned writer and scholar
April 7, 2001
Additional Notes by Marjorie Ramphal
The history of international tribunals for war crimes began with the Nuremburg International Military Tribunal (IMT) and the Tokyo IMT FEW after World II. During the cold war, the UN was stymied in creating such tribunals. In 1993 a tribunal was established in the former Yugoslavia to try war criminals and in 1994 one was established in Rwanda to try perpetrators of genocide. Although Clinton was unwilling to send American peacekeepers, he was very willing to send an army of prosecutors.
In 1998, the International Criminal Court Statute was established by the Treaty of Rome. Sixty nations must ratify it before it can go into effect. So far 29 have ratified it. Clinton signed it late in his term of office, but did not submit it to the Senate for ratification.
An alternative model is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa which offered amnesty to human rights violators for a full and truthful confession. Their authority was challenged in court by the family of Steven Biko and the Commission's legal authority was upheld by the highest vourt.
Two problems with the International Criminal Court (ICC) are:
(1) "Justice" is usually seen differently by different parties. Whose justice will prevail? (2) Who legislates for the ICC? Not all the nation states who are parties to the treaty are democracies.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission harvested an enormous amount of truth in three years. It provided an incentive for truth telling while the justice system often provides an incentive to hide the truth.
A third human right to be sought in addition to justice and truth is the right to peaceful development.--i.e., without the disruption of widespread violence. The U.S. has not experienced war directly since the Civil War. Europe (and other countries) have and therefore view war differently.
The criminal justice system infantilizes and marginalizes victims and defines issues in black and white. A more Quakerly view is to separate the sin from the sinner and see something good in every person.
Leaders of the three communities in Bosnia asked European nations to support a truth commission. The prosecutor in the War Crimes Tribunal, Louise Arbor, asked these nations not to support a truth commission because it would disturb the work of the Tribunal.
Mozambique has developed a third option to deal with violence--healing ceremonies. We need to learn more about this and other cultural approaches before they are crowded out by the criminal justice approach.
Helena quoted the 85th psalm and said that mercy needs to be an added value in society's response to violence. She reported her own reaction to the atrocities in a Palestine refugee camp in Lebanon which, as a foreign correspondent, she saw the day after they were committed. She felt profound sadness, a different reaction than the judging and punishing of the justice system.
Questions/Comments
Audience member: The proposed truth commission in Bosnia would seek truth, but not provide amnesty. This would result in testimony from victims on all sides to arrive at truth.
Helena: What worked in Germany was punishment of a few together with lots of help--i.e., the Marshall Plan. Just as in a family, punishment works in a context of caring.