Mick Hartley

Worth a read: Nick Donovan of the Aegis Trust, on bringing to justice those Sudanese convicted of war crimes.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb for atrocities in Darfur, Sudan. Their names mean little to most of us, while those of Fred West and Harold Shipman have become shorthand for mass murder. Yet the crimes of these serial killers belong to a pre-industrial age. […]

Small teams of men tracking down and capturing war criminals is largely the stuff of fiction. The real work is done behind the scenes: threatening to withdraw bilateral aid unless suspects are handed over, untangling extradition requests, creating specialist police units and domestic legal reforms to allow extraterritorial jurisdiction over international crimes. Most of all, the problem is not finding suspects but taking the many small steps to create the political will to prosecute them.

The UK has an opportunity to take one of these small steps in June. Like Eichmann, the Sudanese government minister Armad Harun is suspected of being one of the middle managers of mass murder. It took real management skill to cajole disparate militias, and the Sudanese Army and Air Force, to conduct hundreds of separate attacks across an area the size of France. These skills were rewarded with promotion: Harun is now Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, in charge of feeding the victims of his own suspected crimes.

The international community’s response to this defiance has been to do nothing. Nor has it acted against Kushayb, the former Janjawid leader.

This June the UK will play a key role on the Security Council, helping to guide its response to the ICC prosecutor’s next report on Sudan. Last time, China blocked a presidential statement on the ICC. This time, with China absorbed by the Olympics, the UK should take the lead and introduce a resolution imposing asset freezes on all Sudanese government officials harbouring Harun and Kushayb. Any future discussions of debt relief or bilateral aid for Sudan should also be made conditional on handing over the two men for trial.

The international community has spent a long time on the “architecture” of international justice and has neglected the “plumbing”. We’ve built an impressive list of treaties and international tribunals and courts, while neglecting enforcement and apprehension.