At 8 am eastern standard time, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. This was not exactly an unexpected development. We have known for at least a week that today was the day that the shoe was to drop.
Boonstra and I have followed the ICC proceedings against Bashir for quite a long time here on UN Dispatch. You can see posts here, here, and here and a recent American Prospect piece I wrote. Bottom line is that we believe that the warrant has the ability to give the international community added leverage over the Sudanese government, which on balance has been an unhelpful partner for peace in Sudan. We are mindful that certain deleterious humanitarian consequences may follow today's announcement, but if approached with the right diplomatic finesse, the arrest warrant can support wider international efforts at peace and stability in Sudan.
Throughout the day we will update this post with reactions around the world to today's big news. In the meantime, check out this Enough Project report on how the arrest warrant will shake up Sudanese politics and Citizens For Global Solutions' invaluable ICC explainer.
The big news out of The Hague will come tomorrow, but today the indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal (and noted soda-drinker) Radovan Karadzic pled not guilty had the presiding judge enter a plea of not guilty for him. Karadzic, borrowing a trick from his former boss Slobodan Milosevic, is representing himself, and, despite having some sound legal minds advising him, seems determined to use the opportunity to rail against the court and generally sow disorder and disruption.
"I'm not going to enter a plea at all. This tribunal does not have the right to try me," Karadzic said, raising his voice as he faced the courtroom alone, flanked by two guards.
When the judge pressed him on whether this meant he was pleading not guilty, Karadzic began "Yes, but...," and the judge cut him off, smartly wanting to avoid setting a precedent for antics that could detract from the proceedings' effectiveness. This is a good sign that the judge, the wonderfully accented Iain Bonomy, will hopefully be able to keep the trial on track and minimize the off-topic ranting that damaged Milosevic's trial.
One can only imagine what Bashir would have to say if he ever stands trial...
Via Zach Seward, a very cool exhibit from San Diego based artist and software developer Tim Schwartz. Schwartz went through every New York Times article from 1851 to the present and created a number of systems to visually represent how certain topics covered in the New York Times have evolved over time. For example, at about 2:20 Schwartz introduces a project called Geohistoriography, which overlays a map of the world with a clock ticking back from 1851. Countries grow larger or smaller depending on their primacy in the New York Times in any given year.
That's just one example of some amazingly cool work featured in this video. Enjoy.
Tim Schwartz visualizes history (1851-2008) through word usage in The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.
While ICC judges have been chewing on whether or not to issue an indictment for Sudan's president, as requested by the Court's Chief Prosecutor, for over six months, one thing they will not be chewing, when their decision comes out tomorrow, is the warrant itself. President Bashir politely made such a request today:
"They will issue their decision tomorrow ... this coming decision, they can prepare right now: they can eat it (the warrant)," Bashir told a crowd of cheering supporters who lit and stamped on an effigy of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Sudanese government officials are no strangers to provocative bluster, even if it comes out nonsensical or at odds with their intentions. When security chief Salah Gosh warned that, if an indictment came down, the ruling party would renege on its transformation from Islamic extremists to "moderate and civilized" leaders -- inadvertently offending, as Michael Kleinman wittily points out, potential attendees of the next "jihadist disco night" that Sudan may want to host. And of course, top presidential adviser (and potential rival for power, should Sudan's cabal lean toward dumping Bashir) Nafie Ali Nafie infamously told former U.S. Secretary of State to "lick her elbow" when she took a hard line on Sudan.
The meal will be served tomorrow morning in The Hague. And elbows off the table, please.
(image from flickr user Dia™ under a Creative Commons license)
James Dobbins offers a novel idea: if the United States wants to thaw relations with the Iran, a good first step is to stop NOT talking to them.
For nearly 30 years, American diplomats have been limited as to when and where they could speak to their Iranian counterparts. The president could authorize Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lift this ban. It's that simple: Whether the diplomat is Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice; special envoy Richard Holbrooke, on a visit to Kabul or Islamabad; former assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill when he gets to Baghdad to replace Ambassador Ryan Crocker; or other U.S. diplomats, all would henceforth be free to engage Iranians as they do representatives of other countries with which the United States has troubled relations.
In this scenario, each American would operate within the limits of his or her existing instructions and responsibilities, as would the Iranians with whom he or she spoke. This is not a formula for negotiating a "grand bargain" addressing all the grievances of both sides or meeting all of each side's needs. Contacts of this limited nature would be unlikely to produce near-term breakthroughs. Eventually, if real progress is to be made, each side would need to establish a privileged, confidential channel through which all issues of interest to both governments could be put on the table. It would be a lot easier to set up and maintain that kind of channel if the principle of direct contacts were established and the practice routine.
Dobbins does not get into it in his op-ed, but he has some personal experience with this sort of thing. In 2001, he was the American representative to the Bonn Conference which brought local Afghan factions and regional players together to try and concoct a new Afghan political consensus post-Taliban. In his excellent memoir of the time After the Taliban, Dobbins recounts how, somewhat surprisingly, he was able to work quite effectively with his Iranian counterparts at Bonn. Of course, this was before the Axis of Evil speech.
I talked to Dobbins about this episode a few months ago for a BloggingHeads segment. Here's Dobbins in his own words.
UPDATE: Some readers are having trouble viewing the video. Here is a direct link to an excerpt of my conversation with Dobbins.
I've not yet fully digested my thoughts on the Obama Administration's evident decision not to attend April's upcoming Durban Review Conference, but overall, this rather unsurprising news -- announced last Friday by the State Department -- has struck me as less upsetting than my previously articulated support for participation might indicate. For one thing, the announcement makes fools out of those hysterically claiming that even mere participation in preparatory meetings for the conference would doom the United States to inevitable participation. As I stressedso often, participating, sending a delegation, talking in these preparations at no point obligated the United States to attend the conference itself. It was left free to decide whether it would be in its interests to do so, and, at this point, it seems to have decided that it would not be.
At the same time, this is an unfortunate decision, one most probably mandated by domestic political concerns. I do not believe that the team that Obama Administration sent was surprised by, or unprepared for, the decision to withdraw. Nor do I think the decision stemmed from prior naivete, or even inexperience. Part of this judgment is just the sheer weight of practicality. The conference is three months into Obama's tenure; he is facing, simultaneously, his administration's interest in international cooperation, and the thrust of a long-standing, vociferous campaign from Durban opponents to boycott the conference. I don't like to afford the more rabid of these opponents more influence than they deserve, but it's undeniable that their vehemence had a magnet effect on many moderates who, instead of seeing the Durban Review Conference as an opportunity, accepted the aggressively promulgated view that it would inevitably be merely a carbon copy of its predecessor.
The echoes of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing from the original Durban conference were loud enough even to drown out calls for restrained engagement by prominent Jewish organizations. And the seriousness of the problem that the conference was addressed to tackle -- anti-racism and xenophobia, and all manners of discrimination -- was also largely drowned out by legitimate, if outsized, concerns of even greater hostility toward Israel this time around.
Friend of Dispatch (and On Day One contest winner) Roger Doiron wrote an op-ed in yesterday's Chicago Tribune about, you guessed it, a White House Victory Garden!
In Jerzy Kosinski's novel and award-winning screenplay, "Being There," the U.S. president turns to a plain-spoken gardener named Chance for wisdom at a time of economic crisis. The insight Chance offers is as simple as it is reassuring: Growth has its seasons and, as long as the roots of growth are not severed, all will be well.
President Barack Obama would be wise to add a gardener or farmer to his team of advisers. I already know what advice I'd offer if called to serve: Launch a new victory garden campaign starting with one on the White House lawn.
In another one of John Bolton's weekly stark-raving mad op-eds, the former U.S. ambassador to the UN targets his missiles not at Chicago, but back to his customary bete noire: Iran. As RealClearWorld's The Compass blog points out, the takeaway from Bolton's latest missive in The Wall Street Journal is actually a rather pointed suggestion of outright regime change, only buried deep into the piece and conveniently not elaborated on whatsoever.
On one (very shallow) level, Bolton's logic is understandable. He interprets various geopolitical problems -- Iran's nuclear potential, its support for terrorists in Gaza, and its meddling in Iraqi affairs -- as all symptomatic of the malignant cyst that is the Iranian regime. But by not discussing how to conduct such an operation -- dangerous and potentially counter-productive even to the most optimistic of observers -- or even how changing Iran's regime would remove the above symptoms, Bolton's logic veers off the tracks -- quite patently. Case in point:
Iran opposes a freer, more stable Iraq, and U.S. diplomacy will not change that. Given the recent political and military progress in stabilizing Iraq, Tehran holds a weak hand. Accordingly, legitimizing Iran as a factor in Iraqi affairs via diplomacy is patently illogical and would only strengthen Iran at the very moment Mr. Obama has announced the reduction of America's presence and clout in Iraq.
If Iranian support for destabilizing elements within Iraq is a symptom, then it requires acknowledging that Iran is in fact "a factor in Iraqi affairs." Diplomacy will no more "legitimize" this truth than ignoring it will make it go away. If Bolton is truly interested in curbing Iranian influence in Iraq, and not simply in finding an excuse to invade Iran, then acknowledging and talking about this influence seems a prerequisite to eliminating it. Otherwise, we might as well just plug our eyes and ears to reality and bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
IntLawGrrls reminds us that 29 years ago yesterday, on March 1, 1980, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was opened for signature. Since then, 185 countries have signed and ratified the treaty. Of the seven UN Member States not a party to CEDAW, the United States unfortunately remains the most glaring example.
But perhaps not for long. With a new U.S. administration that has already made clear its support for women's rights and its desire to re-engage with the international community, fundamental UN human rights treaties like CEDAW may be closer than ever to ratification in the United States. Senator Barbara Boxer urged both Secretary of State Clinton and UN Ambassador Rice, during their respective confirmation hearings, to make progress on CEDAW a priority within the administration's first sixty days. Senator Boxer is also working to get the U.S. signature on the UN treaty upholding the rights of children, and, by my count, those sixty days are about half up.
(In another anniversary of another common-sensical treaty that the United States shamefully still has not signed, March 1 marked ten years since the international convention to ban land mines entered into force.)