Tuesday, May 10, 2005
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL COURT
Inter Press Service News Agency reports on a human rights violation trial in the International Criminal Court being held in Belgium. The article discusses the trial of two war crimes suspects in the Rawanda massacres. Buried near the bottom of the article is this bit about two nuns:
This is the second Rwanda genocide trial to be held in the country after the law was changed to allow prosecutors to bring war crimes suspects to trial even if the defendants are not Belgian and the crimes were committed outside the country.
In 2001, a Belgian court convicted two Roman Catholic nuns, a former government minister and a university professor from Rwanda for their complicity in the atrocities.
That trial was hailed as a milestone in international law. Belgium held the groundbreaking trial under a 1993 law that gave local courts jurisdiction over violation of the Geneva Convention on war crimes, no matter where they occurred. That trial led to a wave of lawsuits in Belgian courts. People filed grievances against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former U.S. president George Bush senior and other leaders.
Perhaps it has simply slipped my mind, but I don't recall hearing about these nuns until now. How ironic is it that the first such trial held under this international system of justics included two Catholic nuns? Were they actually guilty of war crimes? Framed? Was this hushed up? Where are they serving their sentence?
Frankly this whole International Court thing makes me very uneasy.
