By Ann W. Parks

Richard Goldstone, a former justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered the 28th annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture at the Law Center March 19.

Which nation holds the key to the success of international criminal justice — and could further the International Criminal Court’s mission to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity? The world’s sole remaining superpower, which has yet to join the court.

In a March 19 address at Georgetown Law, Richard Goldstone, a former justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, discussed the future of international criminal justice and the International Criminal Court. It was the Law Center’s 28th annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture, delivered in Gewirz Student Center before an audience that included U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Goldstone’s own Georgetown Law students.

The former justice, who served on the South African high court from July 1994 to October 2003 and also served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from August 1994 to 1996, is spending this semester as the Law Center’s Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary. He teaches an international criminal law seminar as well as a course in International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Courts.

The future of any international court, Goldstone said, clearly depends on the political will and the cooperation of the world’s governments. One hundred and six nations have ratified the Rome Treaty that created the International Criminal Court in 2002, but the United States is not one of them.

“The great, great regret, is that the Clinton Administration was not satisfied and wanted greater safeguards,” Goldstone said. While the Rome Treaty was signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 2000 — indicating U.S. agreement to an international court in principle — the treaty was never given to the Senate for ratification. Clinton adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward the court; President Bush, however, was not so optimistic, and proceeded to withdraw Clinton’s signature on the Rome Treaty on behalf of the United States. The Bush Administration “wanted to asphyxiate and kill this new baby,” Goldstone said.

Concerns

Former South African Justice Richard Goldstone talks with current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Since its creation, the International Criminal Court has investigated situations in the Sudan (Darfur), Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. U.S. fears about “runaway prosecutors,” Goldstone said, have proved unfounded; three of the investigations were prompted by governments and one by the United Nations, as opposed to the court’s chief prosecutor.

Other U.S. concerns — including its reluctance to subject itself to a foreign court — may be met as the court proves itself to be, among other things, professional and unbiased. In response to an audience question about the validity of U.S. concerns, Goldstone said that even the worst Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo Bay transgression would not come within the jurisdiction of the court, which addresses crimes against humanity on a mass scale.

“In the absence of ratification, I would hope that the United States under a different administration would cooperate actively with the International Criminal Court,” he said, adding that a change on the U.S. position on ratification could take years, if it happens at all. “Whether the United States will one day take that step … will depend on the efficiency, the efficacy, the professionalism and the fairness of the proceedings before the International Criminal Court. I have that confidence.”