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News and Views About the United States
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EDITORIAL
October 22, 2005
Original Article (French) 
It is long, slow, tortuous and imperfect, but it is an evolution that seems
irreversible. An international legal system is gradually taking shape,
which will no longer mean justice for victors only. This criticism could
be addresses to the court at Nuremberg, which, from November 1945, judged the principal
Nazi dignitaries left alive [See Video Below]. One can say the same
of the Iraqi special tribunal, which commenced on October 19 to hear
the case of Saddam Hussein. One must take this occasion to regret that
the Americans rejected the idea of creating a special international authority
to expose and prosecute the crimes of the one-time Iraqi dictator; whereas
one of his associate, Slobodan Milosevic, is himself being judged in The
Hague by the International Penal Court for
[Editor’s Note: Antoine Garapon is the Secretary-General of France’s Institute of Advanced Legal Studies].
The trademark of the United Nations does not, in and of itself, guarantee total impartiality, but it at least offers a measure of independence when compared to the politically ulterior motives of the dominant powers. The investigation carried out by German magistrate Detlev Mehlis into the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, at the request of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan, is a true demonstration of the potential of international justice. With remarkable speed, Mehlis, who submitted his report to the Security Council last Thursday, followed the trail of those directly involved in the assassination and those that supported it from the sidelines. After interviewing hundreds of witnesses and after placing into police custody a number of high-level officials in the Lebanese administration, he didn’t hesitate to assign blame with "people in charge of the Syrian security services," which leads directly to the entourage of Syrian President Beshar al-Assad, and their collusion with their Lebanese colleagues. The report even provides details indicating suspicion about Lebanese President Lahoud.
Having saluted the rapidity with which the commission has performed its important task, one is made to wonder what will become of its labors. The political risks of pursuing international justice will likely cause a sidestepping. Those Security Council members that demanded a U.N. investigation into the death of Lebanon's former prime minister, and who were so insistent about Syria's withdrawal from the country of the Cedar [Lebanon], primarily France and the United States, are likely to have a change of heart. An international prosecution of certain political leaders would threaten Lebanese stability, and the great powers cannot stop themselves from seeking to prevent this. They are far more dedicated to Realpolitik than to any devotion to international justice as a strategic variable. If they suddenly gave in, they would be acknowledging that rigged rules and double standards damage the international system by undermining the confidence of its weakest members. They [the great powers] may slow the progress of a justice greater than the sovereignty of nations, but they cannot prevent it.
