wfn.org | International court supporters seek justice

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 31 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York       {457}

NOTE: This story is accompanied by a sidebar, UMNS #458.		

By United Methodist News Service

Pol Pot was never brought to trial for his part in the genocide in
Cambodia, but a newly adopted statute providing for a permanent
International Criminal Court (ICC) could provide justice for such crimes
against humanity in the future.

"Guns, goons and gold have largely muted law in the past," said the Rev.
Liberato Bautista, an executive with the United Methodist Board of
Church and Society. "With the ICC, humanity has been given a singular
monumental task to construct an international ethics that will both
challenge old as well as inscribe new notions and practices of law and
order on a global scale."

Both the Board of Church and Society and the United Methodist Council of
Bishops have endorsed the ICC. The bishops' endorsement came in an April
statement reaffirming the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The bishops called upon United Methodists "to urge governments to
support the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court to
prosecute crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and other
serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law."

Such advocacy is particularly needed now that the statute creating the
ICC was adopted by a United Nations Diplomatic Conference in Rome on
July 17. Like other treaties and conventions, it must be ratified by at
least 60 member states to take effect.

The Board of Church and Society has been part of a faith-based section
of the NGO (nongovernmental organization) Coalition for an International
Criminal Court. Bautista was present at the monthlong Rome conference
when the statute was adopted and opened for signature by the states.

He described the conference as a "compromise-making process." While many
countries opposed specific provisions in the statute, he said, some
still voted for it in the end, unanimous in their condemnation of
genocide and other atrocities.

Essentially, the ICC will have a mandate to bring to justice those
responsible for these serious crimes. Unlike the International Court of
Justice, it will be able to indict people, and its jurisdiction will not
be geographically limited.

In his statement after the ICC's adoption, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan noted that the decision has special significance for the United
Nations.

"We never forget that our organization had its origins in a global
struggle against regimes which were guilty of mass murder on a
horrendous scale," he said. "And unhappily we have had to deal all too
recently, in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, with new crimes of the
same appalling nature, if not quite of the same magnitude."

Bautista said United Methodists consider the ICC to be "a possibility
for redemptive justice," allowing people to come to terms with the past
and seek social reconstruction and reconciliation "to not only end
cycles of violence but also allow the planting of the seeds of peace..."

He plans to rally denomination members around the world to push for the
ICC's ratification by individual states, noting that "international
public opinion is much more receptive to the court."

In fact, the U.S. government rejected the statute, although many U.S.
groups, including the American Bar Association, supported its passage.
The American delegation had insisted during the Rome conference that the
ICC should have automatic jurisdiction only if the country of a war
crimes suspect had signed the treaty setting up the court, according to
a July 10 New York Times story.
 
For United Methodists, "the work here in the United States should be to
drum up public support first" as well as to educate church members about
the ICC, Bautista said. After that mission is accomplished, he said, the
denomination can encourage the administration and Congress "to be more
hospitable to such a court."

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United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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