'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

The international courts discussion grows

Well, my article in Foreign Policy on international war-crimes courts has been getting a gratifying amount of attention. My intention in publishing it was, after all, to open up the discussion on this topic to include the previously under-heard point of view that questions or even criticises the general social utility of such courts...

This Thursday, I'm doing a call-in show on the topic on the San Francisco-based radio station KALW-FM. It's an NPR affiliate there. It runs from 1-2 p.m. Eastern Time, so I guess that's 10-11 a.m. Pacific Time.

Tune on in, Bay Area readers. And call in with all your questions.

How many times can I mention JWN in one hour, I wonder?

Also, FP just sent me a bunch of letters that they'll be running in response to my article in, I think, their next issue. Seven letters including only one that's supportive of my argument. Of the six critics, five are law professors. Vested interests, anyone? Okay, I know this is not totally a valid case for me to make-- I realise that these people are also voicing some substantive criticisms of my argument that need to be addressed... And indeed, will be, since FP are giving me a princely 400 words to come back at 'em...

Good. Maybe I could stir things up a bit by mentioning Ramesh Thakur's term "judicial colonialism" in there, somewhere?

So I see that one of these letters is from David Scheffer, now a law prof, previously Pres. Clinton's "Special Ambassador for War Crimes Affairs". Actually, it was hearing David talk about the criminal prosecutions program in post-genocide Rwanda that got me started on that whole entire research project and now soon-to-be book on Transitional Justice.

I remember it as though it were yesterday. It was September 2000, at a conference the Hilton Humanitarian Foundation was holding in Geneva, where David and I were both speakers. I heard him say something like, "Well, the Rwandan government's plan to prosecute all the perpetrators of the genocide is going ahead very well indeed. We're most pleased with their diligence. However, there is a bit of a backlog there, with currently around 135,000 suspects in jail and awaiting trial... And so far, unfortunately, the government has very little capacity to try them, so some of them have been there for more than five years already without having the chance to get into a courtroom... "

And I thought, Oh my G-d, that's huge! Especially given that the whole population of the country was then somewhere under 8 million. So I came away from the conference determined to start looking into it... and... and...

So when do I get to write the mega-long piece about Palestinian politics that I've promised to Deb Chasman at Boston review, you may ask?

Erm... maybe on the 6-hour train-ride going up to NYC this Sunday? Alternatively, I could reframe the piece from being mega-long to being short, sharp, and elegantly composed? Nah. That sounds even harder... Don't worry, I'll think of something... (Maybe blogging less could be an option?)