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Program Overview
- Hosts: Ray Suarez, Deborah Amos
- Length: 51 minutes
- Original Airdate: Apr 2009
The International Criminal Court (ICC) slapped Omar Al Bashir with war crimes charges, and he’s reacted with contempt. There are objections that throwing the book at him might sentence the people of Sudan to more chaos and conflict. The defense for the court rests on the notion justice cannot wait for peace—and no one should get away with crimes against humanity.
In 1998, 121 countries reached a historic verdict and established the ICC. But the jury is still out on whether the ICC can bring war criminals to justice and heal the wounds of conflict. In this program we hear the arguments for and against creating the court and the trials of handing down international justice from The Hague, Uganda and the former Yugoslavia.
Segment 1: Matt Ozug travels to Uganda to uncover local opinions about the International Criminal Court's (ICC) indictment of Joseph Kony, the ruthless leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. Listen to this segment.
Guests: Sam Lokung, counselor at World Vision in Gulu, Uganda; Gulu Archbishop John Baptist Odama; John Wilson Ojok, former camp commander for Pa Bo, Uganda's largest internally displaced persons camp; and Jimmy Otim, field outreach assistant with the ICC.
Segment 2: Ray Suarez traces the history of international criminal tribunals, from Nuremburg to the ICC. Listen to this segment.
Guest: Gary Bass, Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University and author of Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals.
Segment 3: Deborah Amos travels to The Hague and to the Balkans to examine whether the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has succeeded in administering justice and healing the wounds of ethnic conflict. Listen to this segment.
Guests: Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor for the ICTY; Richard Dicker, head of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch; Rafiq Hodjic, Outreach Coordinator for the International Tribunal in Sarajevo; Mirko Klarin, executive editor of Sense News Agency; and Natasha Kandic, Director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade.
Segment 4: Ray Suarez hosts a discussion about the ICC's effectiveness and America's relationship with the Court. Listen to this segment.
Guests: John Bellinger, former Legal Adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Leslie Vinjamuri, Assistant Professor of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Judging the International Criminal Court / Executive Producer: Aaron Lobel / AAM Producers: Monica Bushman, Sean D. Carberry, Matt Ozug, Monica Villavicencio and Chris Williams / Interns: Megan Nemeh, Nadia Shairzay and Ann Thomas / Special thanks to Flawn Williams and Sam Gummah.
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What People are Saying
I think Al-Bashir should face the music and he must be handed in at the ICJ to answer all the charges brought against him.
, 11 months ago
Well that was a tour de force of avoidance of the elephant in the living room. Let me guess: the show's produced inside the beltway. Am I right? Where else would a program be made about war crimes and international justice that so assiduously avoids any mention that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, John Yoo and company are considered candidates for war crimes prosecution?
, 10 months ago
The ICC has always been a controversial issue and it's especially convoluted in Africa. What's often misunderstood even though it's mentioned a lot is the fact that the ICC is a court of last resort. Countries once ratified always have the choice to prosecute criminals themselves instead of seeking the ICC but in the case of something like Uganda and the LRA, the gov't itself asked for the ICC to intervene. I do agree with Richard Goldstone in saying that you can't just have a little bit of international justice. You have to have a Global Rule of Law. There is a lot of information and discussion about the ICC at this site: http://ijcentral.org
, 10 months ago
