Cherif Bassiouni :

Realpolitik and the pursuit of international criminal justice. A perennial conflict?

The Torkel Opsahl memorial lecture 2008

Time: Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 15:15 - 17:30
Venue: Gamle Festsal, Urbygningen, University of Oslo, Karl Johans gt. Oslo

Abstract:

The lecture will address the historic evolution of international criminal justice with a particular view to its current staning in international law. This evolution reflects the values of accountability as a means of achieving justice and peace through justice. The basic premise is that reconciliation between those engaged in a conflict cannot occur without first the establishment of truth and second the pursuit of some modality of justice that is likely to bring about closure to the victims and which, in some respect, ensures that the harm which occurred in the past is not likely to be repeated in the future.

Against such values and goals stand realpolitik which reflects power interests, economic interests and in many cases the expediency of settling conflicts in the most expeditious, inexpensive and realistic manner.

In the contemporary world of globalization, the first of the two is reflected by international civil society and by a number of states while the second position is reflected by states who still mirror in their conception of world relations, the images of the Westphalian legal system, which since 1648 has been characterized by a chaotic world order in which interests and power outcomes dominate over values.

Profile of Speaker

M. Cherif Bassiouni, born in Egypt, is a Distinguished Research Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law, Chicago, and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute which he founded in 1990. He is also President of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Siracusa (Syracuse), Italy, as well as the Honorary President of the International Association of Penal Law (President 1989-2004), based in Paris, France.
Professor Bassiouni is the author of 27 and editor of 44 books, and the author of 217 articles on a wide range of legal issues, including international criminal law, comparative criminal law, and international human rights law.

He has served the United Nations in a number of capacities, including as Member and then Chairman of the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (1992-94), and later as member or chairman of several expert bodies in the preparation of the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Bassiouni was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Hague-based International Criminal Court and also wrote a key report on atrocities committed in the Bosnian war. In 2004, he was appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as the Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan.

Cherif Bassiouni has received a large number of academic and civil awards as well as state orders and medals. In 2007, he was awarded the Hague Prize for International Law for his "distinguished contribution in the field of international law".

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Torkel Opsahl, (1931 – 1993) Cand. Jur 1955, Dr. juris 1965. Professor in constitutional and international law, University of Oslo from 1965. Member of the European Human Rights Commission between 1970 and 1984. At the same time, from 1977 to 1986, member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. He worked, together with Jan Helgesen and Asbjørn Eide, for a number of years in order to establish a Norwegian Institute for human rights, and became the founding Chairman of the Institute when it was established in 1987. He took part in two UN missions to prisoner-of-war camps in Iran and Iraq, in 1985 and 1988. From 1992 to 1993 he chaired an independent commission on Northern Ireland. Based on extensive hearings among northern irish citizens the commission issued a number of recommendations that has greatly influenced the political development in Northern Ireland.
At the time of his death he chaired an international expert commission assigned by the UN Secretary General to investigate war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
Literature: A compilation, spanning a period of more than three decades, of Opsahls writing is available in English: Law and Equality, Selected Articles on Human Rights, AdNotam Gyldendal 1996. Norwegian Centre for Human Rights can supply the book upon request.