Politics Knows Nothing About the Reasons of Justice
    By Natalie Nougayrède
    Le Monde

    Wednesday 07 February 2007

An interview with Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

    Natalie Nougayrède for Le Monde: In Afghanistan, the Parliament has just voted an amnesty for war crimes. You have criticized it. Must we not surrender the immediate imperative of justice in the interest of a return to peace?

    Louise Arbour: Certainly not by granting amnesty. An amnesty is permanent; you can't go back on it to revisit the past. It allows people who have committed atrocities to keep power. At a minimum, safeguarding a space for justice requires that no amnesty be granted. Ideally, legal mechanisms centered on justice should be launched immediately. However, if people worry that this might imperil international personnel on the ground or reconciliation processes, I would say: don't move too quickly, but don't pardon anything before the facts have been established.

    Within the UN system, we often have that debate about the sequence of priorities. Some say: peace, first; justice afterwards. I've never heard anyone say: justice first, peace later. To subjugate justice to political processes is to compromise it. When we begin to say that "justice must come into play at the right time," we are, by definition, manipulating it.

    We've never really tried justice first. We tried a little bit in the Balkans: the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICCY) was established before the Dayton accords. Would the situation that resulted from that peace agreement have been better or worse without the legal effort? We'll need twenty-five years before we can bring a calm historic perspective to that question.

    Le Monde: But what do you counsel, concretely, in the context of Afghanistan?

    Arbour: From the beginning, I advocated, without success, a legal approach with the emphasis on justice. In that country, the first - important - gesture of justice is "verification": preventing people against whom there is serious evidence from being able to accede to important positions in the political arena, in public administration, in the police. Some answer that - in that event - those people will continue their "warlord" activities." That's speculative. And even if that were the case, what will we do? Legitimize their power? That's not acceptable either.

    Le Monde: In Nepal, couldn't the legal mechanism you advocate compromise the peace agreement established between the government and the Maoist rebels?

    Arbour: The Nepalese political agreement makes provision to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There's no commitment with respect to legal prosecutions. I told the Nepalese: no amnesty before researching the truth. In the short term, the struggle against impunity does not threaten the Nepalese peace process.

    Le Monde: With respect to Darfur, close to two years after the UN Security Council referred the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC), there are still no charges for crimes against humanity. At the same time, the UN is trying to obtain Khartoum's agreement for a deployment of the Blue Helmets. Do you think that, in this case also, the legal process must be carried out, whatever the political consequences?

    Arbour: When I was a prosecutor (at the International Criminal Courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, ICCY and ICCR), many people told me how I should do my job, but they were unaware of the constraints I faced. It bothered me a lot that I could not answer them publicly. Many NGOs said: "She doesn't do anything!" I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't talk about it. Consequently, I am not about to give lessons to the ICC prosecutor.

    When I was a prosecutor, I accused (Slobodan) Milosevic during the NATO military intervention, very aware that I was acting in a highly politicized environment. But I was not a political actor. Justice, the legal sector, has its own demands, its own constraints. As long as the Security Council does not stop it, it goes forward.

    Le Monde: Couldn't the price for peace in Darfur be to defer charges against Sudanese officials?

    Arbour: All that is highly speculative. When I charged Milosevic, the majority of NATO opinions held that a bill of indictment would be catastrophic, that Milosevic was going to dig in. As for me, I decided that I would bring charges at the time that was legally appropriate. Eight days later, the conflict was over.

    I don't want to suggest that the indictment put an end to the conflict, but one must not assume the consequences of a legal gesture, especially when it is a gesture that has its own integrity. The law has its reasons that political reasoning is unacquainted with.

    Le Monde You are suggesting that indictments could facilitate a settlement of the Darfur crisis …

    Arbour: No. I would not speculate one way or the other. To bring charges of genocide, of crimes against humanity, is a very serious gesture that has significant consequences for the victims, for the accused, and for the international environment. I have become the advocate of this extreme position because no one else is. Everyone else talks about compromise, but I think we must dissociate the different agendas.

    Besides, let's be frank: this political agenda in the Sudan has not produced fabulous results. What is it, this political agenda, to tell us to go easy with justice and the law?