Översynskonferensen för Internationella Brottmålsdomstolen har öppnat

Igår (måndag) öppnade översynskonferensen för Internationella Brottmålsdomstolen. Det innebär att delar av domstolens stadga kommer att kunna revideras. Det största intresset kommer att riktas mot frågan huruvida domstolen ska ta upp mål som rör individuellt straffansvar för aggressionsbrottet. Ingen internationell tribunal eller domstol har haft en sådan befogenhet sedan Nürnbergtribunalen och Tokyotribunalen.

Jag skrev ett inlägg om det för två veckor sedan.

En som uttalat sig kritisk mot att ICC ska få en sådan befogenhet är Richard Goldstone, den förste chefsåklagaren vid tribunalen för f.d. Jugoslavien och Rwanda, senare ledare för FNs undersökning av Gazakriget. Via bloggen Opinio Juris hittar jag följande text av Goldstone i New York Times, 26 maj 2010.

Based on my experience as an international prosecutor, and speaking as a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court, I think it would be a mistake to add the crime of aggression to the Court’s docket now. The issue should be deferred again.

By any measure, the I.C.C. has gotten off to a strong start in generating international support and demonstrating its potential to address the problem of impunity for serious international crimes.

But it also has encountered charges of politicization and is still learning, as an institution, how to exercise effectively its jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

One of the greatest challenges I faced as prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (I.C.T.Y.) was convincing the Serbian public that the court was not a politically motivated conspiracy against Serbia. This challenge would have been immensely greater — perhaps impossible — if the Tribunal’s jurisdiction had included the crime of aggression. That would have required me to investigate and potentially prosecute the decision to go to war — which is inherently a profoundly political decision.

Prosecuting that decision would have inflamed Serbian suspicions of a conspiracy; choosing not to prosecute would have incited countervailing charges that the Tribunal was not fulfilling its mandate. Such a debate would have diverted attention and energy from the imperative of fairly and effectively providing justice and accountability for the grave crimes then being committed against civilians in the former Yugoslavia.

Now is not the time for the I.C.C. to risk embroiling itself in similar controversy. The issues that would arise from dealing with allegations of aggression would give ammunition to critics who claim it is a politicized institution.

Lite oväntat att detta kom från Goldstone men det gör det än mer tankeväckande. En del vänsterliberala folkrättsjurister i USA undrar skämtsamt vad folkrättsprofessorn Dershowitz ska säga. Han är traditionellt hökaktig och brukar ofta ta motsatt position gentemot Goldstone, ska Dershowitz nu ta ställning för att ICC ska ha kompetens över aggressionsbrottet?