U.S.
Plans for Iraq Tribunals
"A Mistake"
International Tribunal
Needed
(New York, April 7, 2003)
Iraqis responsible
for past crimes should
be prosecuted before an
international tribunal,
not the U.S.-sponsored,
Iraqi-led judicial process
outlined at the Pentagon
today, Human Rights Watch
said.
A tribunal composed of
Iraqi jurists selected
by the United States would
not have the capacity
to adjudicate the staggering
scope of crimes by the
Iraqi government, including
genocide, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes.
Iraq's Revolutionary Courts,
State Security Courts,
and Special Provisional
Courts have been instruments
of repression rather than
impartial judicial institutions,
Human Rights Watch said.
The Iraqi state has also
interfered with other
civil and criminal courts.
Meanwhile, scholars,
lawyers, and jurists in
the Iraqi exile community
should not be expected
to shoulder the burden
of handling a high volume
of politically charged
prosecutions, Human Rights
Watch said.
"After decades
of Ba'ath Party rule,
the Iraqi judiciary has
been deeply compromised,"
said Richard Dicker,
director of the International
Justice Program at Human
Rights Watch. "The
Iraqis should certainly
be involved in this process,
but the country's justice
system just doesn't have
the capacity to handle
a series of highly complicated
trials. The local solution
proposed by the U.S. government
would be a mistake."
Dicker said the United
States should support
a tribunal composed of
international jurists,
or a "mixed"
tribunal composed of local
and international legal
experts.
Human Rights Watch estimates
that in the 1988 Anfal
campaign, more than 100,000
Kurds, mostly men and
boys, were trucked to
remote sites and executed.
Since the late 1970s,
as many as 290,000 people
were "disappeared"
in Iraq. Between 1977
and 1987, some 4,500-5,000
Kurdish villages were
systematically destroyed
and their inhabitants
forced to live in "resettlement
camps."
Iraq's ethnic and religious
composition may also complicate
the establishment of local
tribunals. For example,
a judicial panel composed
of victims of the Ba'ath
regime, such as Kurds
or Shi'ites, could not
be considered impartial.
Reforming the current
courts and training judges
for an Iraqi-led tribunal
would take considerable
time, Dicker said.
"The U.S. government
can't solve this problem
by offering some technical
assistance to the Iraqi
judicial system,"
said Dicker. "That
system needs to be rebuilt
from the ground up."
To read more on the war
in Iraq, please see: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/iraq/
Kenneth Roth is
executive director of
Human Rights Watch.
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