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A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.
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5/16/06
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An early test of whether the International Criminal Court can be effective is whether those countries that support it -- especially European countries -- will provide the wherewithal to enforce the ICC's first arrest warrants. Those warrants were unsealed last October and named leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army, a vicious insurgency that kidnaps children in northern Uganda and turns them into child soldiers or sex slaves.
But don't hold your breath. The Council of the European Union, Europe's ministerial level legislative body, addressed the issue on Monday. The indicted commanders, it said, "must be apprehended and brought to face justice as a matter of urgency." Note the passive voice. Who, you might ask, should do this apprehending and this bringing to face justice? "The Council calls on the Government of Uganda and neighbouring countries to work together to effect the arrest warrants." (Emphasis added.) Of course, if the Government of Uganda could arrest the LRA leaders, it would have done so without calling in the ICC in the first place. And as for neighboring countries, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo simply doesn't control the territory in the east where the LRA sometimes lurks, and the government of Sudan . . . well, let's just say that it's not part of the solution.
Is the ICC an "international" criminal court? If so, what "international" efforts will the European Union lead to arrest the indictees and bring them to justice?
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