ShareThisFor the first time in history, an international criminal court is set to issue an arrest warrant for the leader of a country, accusing him of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture and rape.
The warrant -- expected to be issued next week for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir -- will be hailed by many as a sign that nobody is above the law and even a sitting president has no immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
Yet even as activists applaud the move, a debate has erupted over whether the arrest warrant will help or hurt the people of Sudan, particularly the long-suffering victims of the Darfur region.
Some experts fear the move by the International Criminal Court could unleash a new wave of violence in Darfur, destroying a fragile peace process that has just begun to make some early progress.
The debate highlights an emerging global issue: Should the desire for justice inevitably trump every other concern? Are there times when the search for justice should be set aside in the interest of peace? Or should justice be above politics?
A warrant for al-Bashir would be a venture into uncharted waters: a new era of universal jurisdiction, leading potentially to a world constitution under which the traditional powers of a nation-state are subordinate to the principles of human rights and justice.
For many activists it is an exciting breakthrough, the triumph of a new world order.
But others are wrestling with the tougher question of how the arrest warrant might affect the war-weary people of Darfur's villages and refugee camps, where as many as 300,000 people have died in an alleged genocide by Sudan's military.
Godfrey Musila, a South Africa-based international criminal lawyer at the Institute for Security Studies, says the warrant could disrupt the peace process between Sudan's government and Darfur's biggest rebel group.
"An arrest warrant would radicalize or harden President Bashir's stance," he said. "How can you expect him to negotiate a peace agreement when an arrest warrant is on his mind? He would have more leeway to negotiate if an arrest warrant is not looming over him."
The peace negotiations have produced no cease-fire so far, but last week the two sides agreed on "confidence-building measures," including the release of prisoners. Some analysts say the talks are a cynical attempt by Sudan to delay the arrest warrant, while others say the process has a genuine chance of reducing the violence in Darfur.
The ICC announced from its seat in the Dutch city of The Hague this week that it will reveal its decision on the al-Bashir warrant on March 4, although it is widely expected that the court will confirm its intention to issue the warrant.
In the worst-case scenario, some analysts worry that a warrant could trigger a furious backlash from Sudan, forcing the United Nations to withdraw its humanitarian workers from Darfur, triggering the collapse of peace talks in Darfur and in southern Sudan, scuttling planned elections this year and intensifying violence.
But other experts say the opposite is true: The prospect of an arrest warrant is putting pressure on al-Bashir and forcing him to become serious about domestic reforms and peace negotiations.
"The ICC prosecutions may be one of the most effective points of leverage available in Sudan," says a new report by two researchers from the International Crisis Group.
Since last summer, when the ICC's prosecutor announced that he would seek an arrest warrant, there has been "a flurry of announcements" of peace initiatives in Sudan, and these steps "should be encouraged with maximum pressure behind the ICC," the report says.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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