Trouble in Palestine: A Path to Peace at Last?

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Mark Kersten

The following guest post is by Harry Sanders, a content writer and correspondent for the Immigration Advice Service, an organisation of immigration solicitors based in the UK and Ireland.

(Photo: Anadolu)

From the comparatively privileged perspective of the western world, the scale and brutality of foreign conflicts often seem alien in contrast to our own experiences of comfort and safety. Such barbarism and inhumanity was once equally as alien a concept to the people of Palestine. But decades of violence and failed attempts at a resolving the protracted conflict have left the prospect of peace an unattainable ideal and have left Palestinian asylum seekers scattered across neighbouring countries.The potential for elections between rival factions Hamas and Fatah have been touted as a ray of hope to restore some order to the region. Given the history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, can peace realistically be propelled at the ballot box? And if so, what obstacles stand in the way?

It is fundamental that forthcoming elections make it possible for lasting peace be achieved. Since the election of a Hamas majority to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, Palestinian politics has been deeply fractured. An international boycott of the Hamas government, followed by the 2007 Civil War in Gaza, left the already fragmented country even more divided. Attempts at reconciliation have been ongoing for years, such as in 2017 when talks over the contested control of Gaza were brokered in Cairo. 

With this in mind, ensuring that elections fulfil their potential of bringing a long-absent sense of unity to the Palestinian cause is crucial. For this to happen, Fatah and Hamas must agree on a unified strategy prior to ballots being cast. This will help avoid a repeat of the 2006 elections which, as touched upon above, sowed the seeds for the division that has blighted the Palestinian cause ever since. Further to this, it is heartening that the elections are planned to be conducted via proportional representation. Ensuring no party forms an overall majority will avoid ill-feeling and enmity. 

National unity is still far from reach, and despite the agreement between Hamas and Fatah to hold elections, there are several barriers to their success. The upcoming elections are being viewed with ‘cautious optimism’, with leader of the Palestine Liberation Front and a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, Wasel Abu Yousef, explaining the ‘tripartite assault’ which threatens to push the situation beyond repair. 

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Exposing hidden weapons of war: Justice and accountability for the deliberate starvation of civilians

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Mark Kersten

Jahaan Pittalwala, and Juliette Paauwe join JiC for this guest-post on starvation as an atrocity crime. Jahaan is a Research Analyst at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Juliette is a Senior Research Analyst, also at the GCR2P.

A Houthi militant stands among debris in Yemen. (Photo: Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

The suffering of civilians in times of conflict is rarely an accident of war. It is instead more commonly an intentional tactic employed by a warring party with little to no regard for the rule of law, aiming to inflict the collapse of a population in its strategic favour. Civilian death tolls in protracted conflicts have reached devastating heights, numbers too large to be the result of mere “collateral damage”. In 2019, more than 20,000 civilians were killed or maimed in just ten conflicts. These deaths and the continued brazen brutality of the actors that caused them, paint an alarming picture: civilians are increasingly the primary targets of indiscriminate tactics of war. That includes the deliberate starvation of civilian communities.

Civilians are targeted in war in both overt and discreet ways. Indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling often reduce civilian objects, such as markets, schools and hospitals, to rubble – the very visible destruction of infrastructure and immediate civilian deaths make it reasonably apparent that there is responsibility for and intent behind the atrocity. 

It can be harder to recognize there is a calculated motive as well as a responsible party behind other types of civilian suffering. The starvation of civilians during times of conflict is one such example; it is more complicated to determine that this atrocity is being deliberately perpetrated as a war tactic.

Nevertheless, the deliberate starvation of civilians is undoubtedly another weapon increasingly employed by perpetrators as a tool to intentionally inflict mass suffering on civilian populations. In January 2016, whencondemning the starvation of civilians in Syria, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon characterized this in plain terms: “Let me be clear: The use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime.” 

Though this method of warfare has always been prohibited under international humanitarian law and customary law – and is not necessarily a new tactic of war – it has proven difficult to prosecute the deliberate starvation of civilians as a war crime. Other more “obvious” war crimes against civilians tend to overshadow the more underhanded and long-term suffering caused by deliberate starvation. This, combined with a lack of clarity and understanding as well as the absence of possible avenues to bring perpetrators to justice, has made it difficult to prosecute and potentially deter the deliberate starvation of civilians. 

Recently, this has started to shift. An increased understanding that this crime is more often committed during civil wars, or non-international armed conflicts (NIACs), has been accompanied by important steps to criminalize the deliberate starvation of civilians in this context. The UN Security Council is increasingly acknowledging the link between armed conflict and conflict-induced food insecurity and the threat of famine; landmark Resolution 2417 (2018) underlines that using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare may constitute a war crime. Several UN Human Rights Council (HRC)-mandated investigative mechanisms have also started unpacking the specific elements and intent behind this crime, facilitating an increased understanding of what constitutes the deliberate starvation of civilians and assisting prosecutors and lawyers going forward. 

Unpacking Starvation as a War Crime  

In Yemen, there exists a dire humanitarian crisis almost entirely the result of the conduct of warring parties: more than 24 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance and over 2 million are facing acute food insecurity. In 2019, the HRC-mandated Group of Eminent Experts for Yemen reported that parties to the conflict have perpetrated “the prevention of access for humanitarian aid, the use of import and other restrictions as a military tactic and use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Attacks by warring parties on the ground, primarily the Houthis and forces loyal to the internationally recognized government, have impacted objects and areas essential for the survival of the civilian population, including public markets, farms, livestock, fishing boats, food warehouses, and water wells. Parties to the conflict have also prevented humanitarian aid access and impeded humanitarian relief by imposing arbitrary fees and complicated bureaucratic procedures as well as contributed to price increases and lack of availability of critical goods such as fuel. 

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Building the International Law of Peace

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Mark Kersten

The following is a guest-post by Mark Freeman. Mark is is the Executive Director of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT).

Negotiations between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban began earlier this year (Photo: Ibraheem al Omari / Reuters)

On this annual Armistice Day, many countries will rightly stop to recall the horrors and heroism of World War I: a war that ended with a 36-day armistice signed between Germany and the Allies in 1918. But what we too seldom recall on this occasion is the importance of the international law that emerged from both World War I and II.

It is, in fact, a paradox of politics that the last century’s great wars also produced great law – and global institutions to match, such as the United Nations. Among other things, we saw the mass expansion of international humanitarian law (ie, the laws of war), the emergence of human rights, and the creation of international criminal law, to name just a few milestones. 

But international law remains a patchwork, built piecemeal as and when existing law falls behind the times. And such a moment has arrived – and in the most surprising of areas. While we have international law to regulate the conduct of internal armed conflicts, we lack corresponding law to incentivise states to choose the path of negotiation in order to prevent such conflicts in the first place as well as end them peacefully once underway. 

Though less common today, the case is the same for inter-state conflicts as it is for non-international armed conflicts. There are general principles, but there isn’t a body of law that could be described as a “law of peace negotiation”.

As a global community, we can do better – and we have the opportunity to do so now that this legal gap has been detected. 

Wars rarely end with total victors. Time and again, conflict parties find themselves sitting around a table to talk their way out of the abyss – just as they did on the 11th of November 1918. But just as often, the window of opportunity for making peace is missed. That is because negotiation with a sworn enemy is always a fraught political decision. Governments enter into it hesitatingly, knowing the choice is filled with costs and risks.

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The ICC Inches Closer to Bashir Prosecution as Sudan and Israel Normalize Relations

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Mark Kersten
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda meeting with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok (Photo via Abdalla Hamdok Twitter Account)

The Middle East watched with interest when it was announced that Sudanese authorities were planning to “hand over” Omar Al Bashir, the ousted president, to the International Criminal Court.

It has been more than 10 years since the ICC issued the first of two warrants for Al Bashir. Despite outstanding obligations on states to co-operate with the Court and surrender Al Bashir to The Hague, he travelled widely, including to member-states of the ICC. Justice for Darfur was neglected. States such as South Africa hosted Al Bashir and threatened to pull out of the ICC when the Court admonished their invitations. European nations worked closely with the regime in Khartoum to stanch immigration from Africa. Powerful actors, including members of the UN Security Council that had referred Darfur to the ICC in the first place, went silent on justice for Al Bashir.

The biggest advantage of a domestic trial is that it would be most accessible to victims and survivors of Al Bashir’s crimes

But then Al Bashir fell from grace in the eyes of his countrymen and women. The Sudanese – though notably not the international community – had enough of him. Many citizens have since pushed for the former leader to be punished for his involvement in atrocities. They might just get their wish.

Now, the question is not “will Al Bashir be brought to justice”, but where and how. According to Sudan’s justice minister, the country is considering numerous options: “One possibility is that the ICC will come here so they will be appearing before the ICC in Khartoum, or there will be a hybrid court maybe, or maybe they are going to transfer them to The Hague. That will be discussed with the ICC.”

When Sudan announced that Al Bashir would be tried by the ICC, many initially assumed that the former president would be prosecuted in The Hague. This would be a remarkable U-turn for a state that has historically been among the most ardent antagonists of the Court.

For more, see the full article, originally published at The National, here.

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The Politics of Electing ICC Judges: Some Unpopular Thoughts

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mark Kersten

Andrea Trigoso joins JiC for this guest-post on the election of judges to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Andrea is a qualified lawyer with an LLM and experience in International Criminal Justice. She also holds a masters in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and the Rule of Law.

(Photo: ICC)

Later this year, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will elect six new judges to the ICC for the next nine years. States have presented 20 nominees in total, comprising lists A and B. Candidates have been evaluated by the Advisory Committee on Nomination of Judges (ACN), which published a report on September 30th, grading the candidates as highly qualified, qualified, only formally qualified, and not qualified. 

Following the report, several actors and organizations advocated for a merit-based election and campaigned against the practice of vote-trading, condemning any potential politicization of the elections. However, the ICC judge elections is inevitably a political exercise, carried out by a political organ (the ASP). It is not possible to escape politics.

The challenge is therefore to avoid politics but the unfair politics that the elections have displayed so far. Some states are politically and financially in better positions than others in their international relations. These advantages have been transferred onto ASP dynamics and, consequently, to the elections, creating politics that encompass power and resources disparities. 

The report of the Advisory Committee on the Nomination (CAN) of judges exemplifies these politics in the criteria established for considering the candidates as “highly qualified”. A recent piece by Owiso Owiso and Sharon Nakandha insightfully explains the issues with the ACN “grading system”. Here, two examples will be briefly reviewed.

Victor Tsilonis, presented under list A by Greece, has experience litigating in his home country, but no experience in the judiciary or in the litigation or judicialization of mass atrocities. At the international level, he had a six-month internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and two pro-bono positions related to the ICC, none of which included judicial work. The ACN concluded that he was highly qualified for appointment as judge under the conditions of Article 36(3)(b)(i) of the Rome Statute, which requires “necessary relevant experience whether as judge, prosecutor, advocate or in similar capacity” (emphasis added). 

The ACN used a different standard for Aïssé Tall, the candidate of Senegal for list A who was considered “only formally qualified.” The reasons for this conclusion were that, although she had relevant experience in the management of complex criminal cases as a prosecutor at the national level, she had only limited experience (two years as a judge of the highest Court in Senegal) presiding over criminal matters, and she did not have in-depth knowledge of the ICC and its jurisprudence.

It seems that what the ACN deemed most important and determinant was knowledge of the Rome Statute and the ICC jurisprudence, even when such knowledge is not required by the Statute itself. Tsilonis fulfilled that requirement and Tall did not. The question that arises is whether mastering the Rome Statute is the most important skill for a judge, or whether there are other more important skills, such as in-depth knowledge of institutions of criminal procedure, managing complex evidence, mastering the principles for legal argumentation, showing the capacity to remain independent amid political attacks, and so on.

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Posted in Elections, Guest Posts, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal Justice, Judges | Tagged | 4 Comments

No Justice without Peace, but what Peace is on Offer? Palestine, Israel, and the International Criminal Court

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Mark Kersten
Graffiti along the dividing wall between Israel and Palestine (Photo: Ammar Awad / Reuters)

There have been many claims posited as to why the Prosecutor or the International Criminal Court (ICC) should not open an investigation into alleged crimes perpetrated on the territory of Palestine by Israeli and Palestinian actors. Among the rarer claims is the assertion that such an investigation would undermine a negotiated settlement to the ongoing and protracted conflict between Palestine and Israel. Still, the claim is not altogether missing. But does it have any veracity? Could ICC action undermine the Middle East peace process? If so, what peace is at stake?

As part of a special issue to be published in the coming months at the Journal of International Criminal Justice and organized by Chantal Meloni and Triestino Mariniello, I have written an article entitled ‘No Justice without Peace, but what Peace is on Offer? Palestine, Israel, and the International Criminal Court‘. A draft is now available here and a snippet follows below:

The International Criminal Court will ruin prospects for peace in the Middle East! Such declarations, or ones similar to them, are relatively rare among the panoply of arguments levied against a potential investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Palestine. This is curious. Israel, Palestine, and a rotating concert of foreign powers have been engaged, in fits and starts, in efforts to craft a lasting solution to the conflict between Palestine and Israel for decades. Moreover, among the most popular criticisms of the ICC is that its activities squander prospects for negotiated peace whenever the Court intervenes in situations of ongoing conflict. Yet this argument has largely been omitted by Israel which, along with some of its allies, have waged a vociferous campaign to undermine the ICC.

In this article, I critically assess the possible ICC investigation into alleged atrocities committed by both Palestinian and Israeli actors against claims made in the so-called ‘peace versus justice’ debate. While it behooves observers of international criminal law and justice to remember that every actual and potential situation before the Court is unique, the analysis below shows that the Palestinian context is particularly distinct. Concerns that the ICC could undermine peace seem unlikely at best, and vapid at worst. Without genuine interest in a negotiated peace from key actors who could initiate a renewed round of negotiations, it is wrong to suggest that the ICC will undermine peace. On the contrary, the ‘peace’ that is currently on offer for Palestinians and Israelis may itself be a threat to peace and security in the region.

This should not lead to the hasty conclusion that the Court should intervene in Palestine. Nor should it be read to suggest that the Court will positively contribute to peace negotiations. But assertions that the Court should not intervene because it may ruin prospects for peace between Palestine and Israel appear to be a politically motivated red herring as opposed to the articulation of a concrete risk. 

This paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, I examine the key claims made in the so-called ‘peace versus justice’ debate as well as some of the debate’s shortcomings. I then outline some of the specific arguments made in the context of a possible ICC investigation in Palestine that touch upon concerns over the Court’s impacts on peace processes and negotiations. Following this, the paper critically assesses the validity of these assertions, arguing that while it would be wrong to conclude that the ICC will invariably have positive impacts on efforts to establish peace, there is no evidence that the Court will undermine whatever ‘peace’ is currently on offer for Palestinians and Israelis. On the contrary, this ‘peace’ may itself be a threat to resolving the conflict peaceably and to long-term stability in the region. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on the peace-justice debate and its applicability to the Israel-Palestine situation. 

Again, a draft of the paper is available in full here. As always, please do share your thoughts here on the blog or with me via e-mail. And thanks for reading!

Posted in ICC Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal Justice, Israel, Palestine, Palestine and the ICC, Peace Negotiations, Peace Processes | 3 Comments

Non-Governmental Organizations, Faith-Based Groups, Legal Professionals, Experts, and Former Government Officials Unequivocally Oppose U.S. Sanctions Against the International Criminal Court

Posted on September 26, 2020 by Mark Kersten

The following is a public letter calling on the United States to drop its sanctions against staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I am proud and happy to have signed the letter alongside luminaries and leaders in the field of international justice and human rights. For more analysis, see here.

(Photo: SHL Architects)

Non-Governmental Organizations, Faith-Based Groups, Legal Professionals, Experts, and Former Government Officials Unequivocally Oppose U.S. Sanctions Against the International Criminal Court

The undersigned organizations and individuals write to express grave concerns and unequivocally oppose the Trump administration’s use of the sanctions authority of the United States to attack the International Criminal Court (ICC), an independent judicial institution dedicated to combatting impunity for the gravest crimes known to humanity.

Many of the undersigned spoke out against steps in this direction taken earlier this year by the U.S. administration. We now issue this further statement because it is uniquely dangerous, extreme, and unprecedented to utilize a mechanism designed to penalize criminals, their aiders, and abettors, against an independent judicial institution. Asset freezes and entry restrictions are tools intended to combat individuals and entities constituting a threat to U.S. national security. By applying these measures to a court that 123 countries – and on two occasions, the United Nations Security Council – have entrusted with providing accountability for atrocity crimes, the United States has brought upon itself the stigma of siding with impunity over justice. The administration’s actions jeopardize the ability of desperate victims to access justice, weaken the credibility underpinning the use of sanction tools in other contexts, and put the United States at odds with its closest allies.

The ICC represents and constitutes part of a global system of international justice of which the United States was a chief architect at Nuremberg and beyond. Today, the ICC, alongside other tribunals, regional mechanisms, and national courts, is carrying forward these efforts through investigations and prosecutions that could help realize justice for atrocity victims from Sudan to Myanmar. As a court of last resort, the ICC only can intervene when and where a State has demonstrated unwillingness or inability to hold its nationals to account for crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction. The ICC therefore provides an essential backstop for victims who have no other recourse to justice. The use of sanctions has the potential for wide-reaching impact against this institution dedicated to advancing justice for victims.

At an historical moment when the global rule of law is under attack from multiple fronts, institutions like the International Criminal Court are needed more than ever to advance human rights protections and the universal goal of preventing future atrocities. Instead, these sanctions send a signal that could embolden authoritarian regimes and others with reason to fear accountability who seek to evade justice. It is essential that the United States answer any allegation of wrongdoing in a manner that does not betray the cause of global justice, abandon international cooperation, or compromise support for human dignity and rights.

As human rights, legal, and faith-based organizations, as well as individuals who have dedicated their careers to these causes, we call upon the U.S. government to rescind the Executive Order authorizing sanctions and return to constructive engagement with the ICC. We urge other governments, Members of Congress, and advocates for victims everywhere to raise their voices to oppose these measures. We invite allies of justice to join us in standing against these destructive measures/attacks.

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New Paper: This Mass Atrocity was Brought to You by the Ivory Trade: Linking Transnational and International Crimes

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Mark Kersten

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials display recovered elephants tusks and illegally held firearms (Photo: Reuters)

Yesterday, I posted remarks that I gave to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Libya with respect to the nexus between international crimes and transnational organized crimes.  My talk was based on ongoing research I have been doing on the subject and a paper that I have been writing for (admittedly) far too long, entitled: This Mass Atrocity was Brought to You by the Ivory Trade: Linking Transnational and International Crimes. It has been in draft form for longer than I’d like to admit, but I hope to finish it in the near future. If you have any comments, please do share – they will help cross the finish line!

The full draft is available here. For those unable to access a copy, feel free to reach out and I will send an PDF version. Here is the gist of the article and its argument:

A supermodel. A Hollywood actress. A Nobel Peace Prize winner. A President-turned-warlord. This is not the beginning of some crude joke or the cast of a TMZ rumour. Rather, it is a list of characters who found themselves together at a party in 1997 which, almost fifteen years after it took place, was examined in what became perhaps the single most dramatic event in the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). According to Mia Farrow (the Hollywood actress), Naomi Campbell (the supermodel) had accepted ‘blood diamonds’ from Taylor (the President-turned-warlord) during a party hosted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela.

Politically, it is possible that the cash-strapped SCSL sought the star-power of such characters in order to raise its profile and receive the funding it needed to conclude proceedings. In the courtroom, however, the prosecution used the testimony of Campbell to demonstrate that Taylor had used illegally traded diamonds to fuel the civil war in Sierra Leone. According to Owen Bowcott: “The diamond donation goes to the heart of the main allegation against Taylor: that he organised and sustained the Revolutionary United Front’s (RUF) invasion of Sierra Leone, trading weapons shipments for looted diamonds.” Still, among the eleven charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and “other serious violations of international humanitarian law” levied against Taylor, none pertained to the Liberian President’s alleged and direct involvement in transnational and organized crimes. While the illicit trade of diamonds to fuel civil war in Sierra Leone was a key element of the prosecution’s narrative and Taylor was eventually sentenced to fifty years in prison for aiding and abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone, little was achieved in terms of establishing clear links between the perpetration of transnational and organized crimes to international core crimes.

Indeed, such links have been, and continue to be, generally under-examined both in legal practice as well as scholarship on criminal behaviour in war. This paper seeks to fill this lacuna by examining the linkages between these two sets of crimes, exploring a number of conflicts where both crime bases have been concomitantly perpetrated in what will be referred to as a international-transnational crime complex. The paper critically assesses possible means of effectively linking the investigation and prosecution of such crime complexes…

… The paper is organized into four sections. Eschewing a legal analysis, the paper first explores theoretical and analytical contributions from conflict and peace studies. This is done in order to demonstrate how contemporary thinking on the nature of violent political conflict since the end of the Cold War has long identified the propensity of transnational and organized crimes being perpetrated concomitantly with international crimes. This section also explores the question of which crime-type comes first. In other words, do transnational and organized crimes precede or succeed international crimes — or vice versa? It is argued that this is not, in fact, a helpful question. Rather than theorizing the perpetration of these two sets of crimes in a linear fashion, it is more useful to study their interaction within an international-transnational crime complex.

In the second section, the paper examines four conflicts in which the perpetration of both sets of crimes have been a prominent expression of political violence: ethnic cleansing and organ trafficking in the war in Kosovo; the diamond trade and war crimes in the civil war in Sierra Leone; ivory poaching and the war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda in central and eastern Africa; and the trade in oil in the war against ISIS, otherwise referred to as the Islamic State or Daesh. These cases were chosen in order to demonstrate the varied manner in which transnational and organized crimes and international crimes interact. These cases also demonstrate that these crime bases are linked irrespective of geographic location or the type of actors involved — governments, rebel groups, paramilitaries, terrorist organizations, and humanitarian actors. In section three, legal and political responses available to relevant actors to link the prosecution and prevention of TOCs and international crimes are explored. The section first examines whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) should play a role in linking the prosecution of TOCs with the international crimes under its jurisdiction. It then explores the potential and limitations of domestic crime divisions, such as those in Uganda and Kenya, which have jurisdiction over both sets of crimes to link the investigation and prosecution of both sets of crimes. The paper concludes by reflecting on further collaborative research between scholars and practitioners of international criminal law / justice and transnational organized crimes.

Thank you as always for reading and please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any comments (or just words of encouragement!).

Posted in Academic Articles / Books, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal Justice, Islamic State, Kosovo, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, Transnational Organized Crime | Leave a comment

A Nexus for Justice: Investigating the Intersection of International Crimes and Transnational Organized Crimes

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Mark Kersten

The following are remarks that I gave on 22 September 2020 to the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Libya, which was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June of this year. The talk focused on the need to investigate the nexus between international crimes (crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide) and transnational organized crimes (human trafficking, extortion, drug trafficking, etc.). I have a forthcoming paper on the subject. For more information on the Mission and its mandate, please see here. 

(Photo: UNSMIL)

It is an honour to speak with you on behalf of the Wayamo Foundation, an NGO that works on advocating for global justice and building the capacity of national authorities to investigate and prosecute international and transnational organized crimes.

I would like to use my time to stress the importance of an issue which we believe continues to receive too little attention, namely the interaction and intersection between the perpetration of international crimes and the commission of transnational organized crimes in Libya (and beyond).

Wherever we look at conflicts over the last thirty years, we can see that the same perpetrators of atrocities have also perpetrated transnational organized crimes.

This is now a common thread of political conflicts, the blurring between organized criminality, atrocity, and warfare.

To name but a few examples:

  • Liberian President Charles Taylor aided and abetted crimes against humanity while engaging in the plunder and illegal sale of diamonds in Sierra Leone.
  • In East Africa, the Lord’s Resistance Army survives to perpetrate atrocities for another day by trading Ivory through Sudan.
  • Members of the Kosovo Liberation Army have been accused of not only committing counter-ethnic cleansing against the Serb population, but of human organ harvesting and trafficking.
  • In Syria, the Islamic State not only perpetrated war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, but sustained itself through illegal markets, selling oil through Turkey and cultural artifacts around the globe.

Libya tragically follows this same pattern. It seems almost too obvious to say: Those involved in the perpetration of crimes against humanity and war crimes are likewise engaged in complex networks of organized crime.

The evidence is overwhelming. And yet too little effort is dedicated to acknowledging the fact that transnational organized crimes and international crimes are fundamentally linked and that, therefore, the investigation and prosecution of these two crime sets should be linked as well.

Libyans experience transnational organized crimes via extortion, arms trafficking, and drug trafficking.

But the most obvious and well-known expression of the intersection between transnational organized crimes and international crimes relates to human trafficking and the concomitant crimes committed against migrants by branches of the Libyan government, including the coast guard, and various militias.

These crimes are well documented.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has repeatedly declared that her office would investigate the trafficking of persons in Libya and that “crimes, including killings, rapes and torture, are alleged to be common place in Libya’s holding centres” where those who are trafficked often toil for months, even years.

We now know that such camps, including Tajoura, have been targeted in bombing campaigns that are likely to constitute war crimes. Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, European Union (EU), Human Trafficking, Libya, Libya and the ICC, Transnational Organized Crime, United Nations | 3 Comments

Trump’s sanctions against International Criminal Court staff aren’t just ‘bad’, they’re Racist

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Mark Kersten

(Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

The presidency of Donald Trump has been defined by the perpetuation and perpetration of systemic racism. Most observers focus on evidence of Trump’s racism within the domestic realm – and there is heaps of evidence to draw upon. Trump’s outright refusal to admonish the right-wing, racist activists in Kenosha, Wisconsin, whilst supporting the actions of police who brutalize racialized communities is just the most recent example of his disdain for social justice and its advocates. But more and more evidence makes clear that the racist lens through which the Trump administration views America is also true of how it views the world. Case in point: sanctions levied against African staff at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Those with longer political memories and who successfully resist the temptation to be distracted by Washington’s most recent racially charged comments or policies, will recall that since the earliest days of his administration, President Trump proudly put in place travel restrictions, decried immigrants who came from “shithole countries”, and locked up children in cages along America’s southern border. All of this was evidence enough: if you weren’t American in the way that Trump and his sycophants want Americans to look like, there was an aggressively discriminatory policy tailor-made, just for you.

Much of this has been justified via an alleged need to ‘protect America’. Trump’s United States projects a fragile image. It needs protection, it seems to suggest, from Mexicans, Africans, people from the Middle East, the ‘radical left’; from the Black Lives Matter movement, Indigenous Lives Matter, and so on. A racially harmonious America or more equal and just world, in this context, is itself deemed a threat to the well-being of all Americans.

As part of this incessant need to protect America, the Trump administration has also set its eyes out on implementing coercive measures against international civil servants who dare to dedicate their professional lives to achieving justice for mass atrocities irrespective of who commits them or how much power they have. It is not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that, in the White House’s estimation, the pursuit of justice for alleged torture and related crimes in Afghanistan is a greater nuisance than the real threat caused to the lives of Americans by the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading →

Posted in Black Lives Matter, ICC Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal Justice, United States | Tagged | 3 Comments