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The Special Tribunal for Lebanon - the Key to National Convergence, Or a New Recipe for Strife?

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The Special Tribunal for Lebanon - the Key to National Convergence, Or a New Recipe for Strife? Transitional Justice for Lebanon: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon - the key to national convergence, or a new recipe for strife? Master thesis Political Science ‘International Relations’: Power and resistance in the Middle East Name: Arthur Blok (10373004) First reader: Dr. Anne de Jong Second reader: Dr. Vivienne Matthies-Boon Date: June 2014 Word count: 20.768 2 Abstract Transitional Justice is a broad term used for a variety of legal measures taken to address a country’s violent past. Often the wrongdoings of predecessor regimes or atrocities committed during a war. A typical transitional justice measure in this respect is the establishment of national or international courts. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is the most recently established international court. It was set up in 2007 by the United Nations Security Council after a request was filed by the then Premier Foad Saniora to prosecute and try the suspects involved in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri. Lebanon did not have the means to seriously deal with the assassination and its aftermath without assistance. Lack of political consensus in Lebanon on the subject of the STL created a status quo in which the Council used Chapter VII of the UN Charter to force through the establishment of the tribunal. Since that moment it is one of the main topics that politically divides Lebanon. At the same time it is the first state- sponsored transitional justice measure in a country that has a long tradition of impunity. This thesis is intended to help to determine the scenarios in which an international court actually helps a society to come to terms with its past or when it harms that process. It is also meant to identify if there is a scenario in which the majority of the political parties in Lebanon could come to terms with each other over the STL. To make this contribution, the central research question: ‘How does the discourse around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon reflect the dynamics between the various political parties inside Lebanon?’ was answered with a case study on the STL. The research methods used were made up of a series of journalistic interviews conducted over a period of five years, and a critical discourse analysis in combination with a literature study. Ever since its inception the STL has been mired in juridical controversies, ranging from a general impression it was forced upon Lebanon, to the many exceptionalities in its statue and its narrow mandate. These matters caused a political debate and led to the politicization of the court. This thesis concludes that the STL was used in the past years in the rhetoric of the various political parties to fit a certain political agenda, and their own ends. The dynamics between the parties are reflected by the politicization of the court, with a long political crises as a result. Despite this there are signs visible in the discourse that a point of convergence could be reached. Consequently, the future effects of the STL as a transitional justice measure for Lebanon remain uncertain. 3 Table of content Abstract p. 3 List of abbreviations p. 5 Introduction p. 6 1. The establishment of the STL, and the role of foreign actors p. 15 2. Legal controversies, considerations, and the main political arguments p. 25 3. Development of the discourse from mid-2008 until early 2014 p. 36 Conclusion p. 51 Bibliography p. 55 Appendix I: List of interviewees p. 60 Appendix II: Statute of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon p. 61 4 List of abbreviations CBC - Canadian Broadcast Corporation ECCC - Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia FPM - Free Patriotic Movement ICC - International Criminal Court ICCPR - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICTR - International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTY - International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia LF - Lebanese Forces party MP - Member of Parliament SCSL - Special Court for Sierra Leone STL - Special Tribunal for Lebanon TRC - South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission UN - United Nations UNIIIC - United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission UNSC - United Nations Security Council U.S. - United States of America 5 Introduction Transitional Justice is a broad and complex term used to address a country’s past often in combination with a history of conflict or repression. It can be defined as ‘the conception of justice associated with periods of political change, characterized by legal responses to confront the wrongdoings of repressive predecessor regimes’.1 The concept does not refer to a special kind of justice but more to an approach in times of transition where justice is adapted to the specific needs of a transforming society. It seeks recognition for victims, or the promotion of possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy. 2 Typical Transitional Justice measures include the set-up of national- or international tribunals, and reconciliation- or truth-seeking commissions. Some known historical examples are the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes trials that were held in the aftermath of World War II. Transitional Justice arose as a field of practice, and as a field of scholarly inquiry in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It emerged in response to political changes occurring in Latin America, Africa, and in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in South Africa with the fall of the Apartheid regime. The transition processes in most of these states into a more democratic and open society was followed with a public demand to address human rights abuses committed by former regimes3. Some known more recent examples to support these processes of transitions include two ‘ad hoc’ tribunals created by the United Nations (UN): the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). An important step in the institutionalization of Transitional Justice is the signing of the Rome Statue in 1998 that came into effect in 2002 with the opening of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The ICC is a permanent international court that tries individuals for ‘the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes 1 Teitel, R.G. (2003). Transitional Justice Genealogy. Harvard Human Rights Journal, 16, p. 69 2 Website ICTJ (2014). What is Transitional Justice Factsheet, New York. ICTJ website, retrieved 8 March 2014: http://ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Global-Transitional-Justice-2009-English.pdf 3 Andreevska, E. (2013). ‘Transitional Justice and Democratic Change: Key Concepts’, Lex Et Scientia International Journal, pp. XX-1, 55 6 against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression’.4 Kaminsky et al. (2006) signal a trend towards what they call ‘tribunality’ by the international community that culminated with the signing of the Rome Statue.5 As a mere illustration of this trend there are - besides the ICC, the ICTY, and the TRC - many recent examples of so called hybrid national-international courts such as: the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) established in 1994, The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in 1997, The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in 2002, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in 2007. Another important step in the institutionalization process is the acknowledgment by the Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan in 2004 of the importance of questions of transitional justice matters for the UN in his report to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) titled: ‘the rule of law in conflict and post-conflict societies’. In this report Annan introduces the following definition of transitional justice: ‘The full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecution, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof’.6 A condition that should be taken into consideration when it comes to assistance of the international community is that this is only necessary in situations where a state or nation is not capable of addressing past atrocities against its people by itself. A status quo that could be caused by a bad or non-functioning judicial system, a partial breakdown of the rule of law, or simply because of lack of proper working institutions. For this Master-thesis the consequences of the most recent international court that was set-up with assistance of the international community - the STL - will be analyzed and examined. The STL was established in 2007 after a request was filed to the UNSC by the prime minister of Lebanon Foad Saniora to set up a tribunal with an ‘international character’ to prosecute and try the suspects involved in the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri. Lebanon did not have the means to seriously deal with the assassination and its aftermath by itself. This was caused by a combination of the factors outlined in the previous paragraph. 4 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2011). ‘Article 1 to 5’, ICC The Hague, pp. 2-3 5 Kaminsky, M.M., Nalepa, M., and O’Neill, B. (2006). ‘Normative and Strategic Aspects of Transitional Justice’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50(3), pp. 296 - 297 6 Annan, K. (23 August 2004). ‘The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies’, UN Doc. S/2004/616, p. 4 7 Relevance An aim of this thesis is to help examine in which scenario an international court actually helps a society to come to terms with its past, and when it potentially brings harm to the process of stability in a nation it is supposed to help.
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