The Merits of Justice Would More People, Or Less People, Rob Banks If There Was No Penalty for Robbing Banks?
www.enoughproject.org THE MERITS OF JUSTICE Would more people, or less people, rob banks if there was no penalty for robbing banks? By John Norris, David Sullivan, and John Prendergast ENOUGH Strategy Paper 35 July 2008 This week the International Criminal Court, or ICC, not only a NATO bombing campaign to reverse the took important steps toward promoting peace and ethnic cleaning in Kosovo, but of high-level peace accountability in Sudan by urging an arrest warrant talks between the United States, Russia, and Fin- for crimes against humanity against the Sudanese land to end the war. President Omar al-Bashir. Sadly, but somewhat unsurprisingly, the step has set off a chorus of Very few commentators took exception with the hand-wringing among certain diplomats, academ- notion that Milosevic had been intimately involved ics, and pundits, who are now arguing that holding in directing ethnic cleansing, genocide, and sundry perpetrators of crimes against humanity account- other war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo. But Russian able for their actions is unhelpful. In the Financial envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin said the indictment Times a columnist positively quelled at the notion “pulled out the rug from under the negotiating of bad people being held responsible for their ac- process,” as both Russia and China decried what tions, bemoaning that “the threat of international they called a “political” indictment that was de- justice may in fact be working against peace.” A signed to scuttle peace talks.1 Others suggested the veteran academic expressed his worry that almost indictment would push Milosevic to stay in power all African senior officials could be made vulnerable permanently or lead his forces to adopt an even to similar charges by this precedent.
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