Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Marvin Kalb: Mr. Ambassador, what were the international expectations as we entered the

  • Nuremberg trials, and looking back upon it what was achieved literally?

  • Stephen Rapp: Well the expectation was that there would be accountability for these crimes

  • and that the other new thing beyond going after the top leaders, the top surviving leaders

  • which had never been done before, as Jackson said, "The law should not just stop at petty

  • crimes by small men. It should reach the men in great positions who by their concerted

  • actions set in motions evils that leave no home in the world untouched." But it also

  • was the idea that there was individual criminal responsibility. There had been this attitude

  • that international law only applied to states, and so you could maybe go to the International

  • Court of Justice and get a judgment against the state because it breached the treaty.

  • In this situation they said crimes are committed by real men. They're not committed by abstract

  • entities, and if you want to enforce international law, you have to punish those responsible

  • for the crimes. And this was a proceeding that Jackson in his opening speech said would

  • seek to condemn the Nazis, not by the evidence of the victors, but by the evidence of the

  • Nazis themselves who had been as he said "meticulous record keepers" and it was possible by their

  • own records to abundantly prove their responsibility for these crimes.

  • Marvin Kalb: Mr. Rapp, so you're involved now with a huge responsibility at the State

  • Department and I'm wondering what is the linkage between what we've been talking about, Nuremberg

  • and the trials, and your current effort to try to find some way of taking the lessons

  • of Nuremberg and apply them to today's search against those people responsible for crimes

  • against humanity?

  • Stephen Rapp: Well we had this period after Nuremberg of the Cold War where it was impossible

  • to hold anyone to account but after the end of the Cold War when we had the atrocities

  • in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the world, the United Nations Security Council went back to the

  • Nuremberg precedence and essentially took, for instance, the provisions on crimes against

  • humanity from the Nuremberg Charter on which the Nazis had been charged together with the

  • other crimes, and put them in the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for

  • Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. And so with relatively little variation, at least scenario, crimes

  • against humanity, we've been trying those responsible for the Rwanda genocide and the

  • crimes in Yugoslavia on the same law that was established at Nuremberg. And then other

  • courts have subsequently been created, mixed courts to try in other places and the International

  • Criminal Court of which we're not a member, but 114 countries are, and its law on crimes

  • against humanity. Again, with some additions, comes from Nuremberg.

  • Marvin Kalb: What then, Mr. Ambassador, are the large unanswered questions, the needs

  • that have to be addressed today?

  • Stephen Rapp: Well the need, the largest need is how you obtain state cooperation, how you

  • investigate get the evidence, how you arrest the people that are charged. At Nuremberg

  • as has been noted, there was an occupation government and Germany. The four powers had

  • total and complete power to do what they needed to do to arrest people, to hold the trial,

  • to execute them in what we've established since 1993 under the United Nations still

  • recognizes that this is a world of states. We have to have each state cooperate if we're

  • going to get what we want to do, and that creates a situation where it's often very

  • difficult to bring people to trial. With the Yugoslavia Tribunal it was possible by using

  • conditionality, by essentially countries in the former Yugoslavia couldn't move toward

  • the EU unless they gave up their war criminals. I mean you use that political tool and that's

  • made it possible for that court to arrest about 148 of its 150 fugitives. In the Rwandan

  • case because the genocidal government was overthrown and the accused traveled the world

  • and ended up in about 26 different countries, countries were willing to adhere to their

  • obligations under the U.N. Charter which is binding on them because it was a Security

  • Council Resolution and turn those folks over and send them to Arusha. Now with the International

  • Criminal Court they're relying on Sudan to arrest al-Bashir, their own president and

  • send him to The Hague. Obviously that's not going to occur. This morning the prosecutor

  • of the ICC, as I think everyone has heard, has indicted, or sought, to be quite precise,

  • sought arrest warrants. Had to go to the judges- judges are going to sit on this for three

  • to four weeks- but he sought arrest warrants against Muammar Gaddafi, his son, Saif, and

  • the head of the Secret Service, Abdul Senoussi, for crimes against humanity, persecution,

  • the crime that Streicher was convicted of by the way at Nuremberg. But they ask him

  • "Well where are you going to get cooperation?" "Well I'll seek cooperation first from the

  • government of Libya." Obviously impossible in the sense that the Gaddafi is the head

  • of Libya. On the other hand he then said but then he'd turn to the Security Council and

  • perhaps ask the Security Council for a resolution similar to what they did with the no-fly zone

  • that might authorize international forces to go in and get an arrest. That's never been

  • done. Whether countries are ready to do that is still a very, very open question. But the

  • point is it's very difficult to enforce these measures and to the extent that now in the

  • ICC you have 14 people indicted, and only five of them that have been arrested, this

  • creates the perception that maybe you can do the crime and get away with it.

  • Marvin Kalb: Do you think, Professor, that the issue of genocide is a very large one

  • with this community and probably all over the world today. The Ambassador has just spelled

  • out, I think very eloquently, the problems involved in trying really to establish a smoothly

  • functioning international criminal system that will deal with the issue of genocide.

  • Do you believe that in the next, what, 10, 20, 50 years we're going to have an international

  • system in place that would allow for an International Criminal Court that everyone would subscribe

  • to?

  • Jonathon Bush: No one would have believed that the immovable fact of the post-war half

  • century would have changed and in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War the idea that there's

  • a court at all, that there are a bunch of courts, is remarkable. Whether it will go

  • farther, I mean, I don't take odds. I have-- just this week one of my oldest defendants,

  • and I was the junior-most lawyer on the case, got convicted, Demjanjuk. He was when I went

  • to the Justice Department the case was already five years old. This is 30 years now. I don't--

  • I have Holocaust survivors in my family, none of them feel particularly vindicated- whether

  • their story was told because this old man is convicted and the judge announced how terrible

  • it was but he would be-- he's under house release. I don't know that the international

  • process is all that it's built up to be. Whether it will be in effect, I don't know, but the

  • idea that one Cambodian has been convicted in all these years, and a pretty nasty guy

  • is still in power. You know the mid-level former Khmer Rouge is sort of smiling at the

  • process and making sure it never reaches him or his loved ones, I don't know. I don't think

  • it's just if the process only went farther and we had more tribunals reaching farther

  • it would be better.

  • Stephen Rapp: Let me just add because obviously in Cambodia they are about ready to begin

  • in June, the trial of the four surviving leaders of the Pol Pot government. Killed two million

  • of their own people. Tried to take their country back to year zero including the number two

  • person under Pol Pot and the titular Chief of State, the Foreign Minister and his wife,

  • the Social Welfare Minister. They'll be on trial. I mean what's- I tend to be more optimistic

  • though, whether we will have everyone in the ICC I think that's something you could question.

  • But part of the principle of the ICC is that justice needs to be done somewhere at the

  • local level, even at the regional level. And the ICC only is involved if there's no will

  • or capacity at those lower levels. And I think we're seeing them. I'm traveling all over.

  • Just in Bangladesh they're trying people for the 1971 atrocities that killed three million

  • in Bangladesh. Everywhere when folks see a Milosevic brought to trial, when they see

  • a Charles Taylor brought to trial, when they see these cases where victims are receiving

  • justice they say "Is our blood not red? Is what happened to our people insignificant

  • in the world?" And so there's a demand for justice and an effort to fulfill that justice.

  • If not at the international level, at a regional or national level and I think that pressure

  • will continue. And even if people- you'll have situations where people will be tried

  • in countries other than their own potentially- when they try to seek refuge- and so I think

  • that we're moving toward a system, a hybridized one, that will I think send a message that

  • if you commit crimes like genocide, you'll face consequences.

  • Audience Question: The clip that we saw at the beginning, it made a grandiose statement

  • about justice but occasionally the U.S. has to hesitate before accusing countries of crimes.

  • For example, in the post-war period the United States picked and chose which Nazis to prosecute.

  • Some of the Nazis were useful to us for scientific or intelligence reasons. And at other times

  • we have to worry about our allies or we use these people because they're enemies or were

  • enemies. Can you comment on the realities of these choices that the United States has

  • to make?

  • Stephen Rapp: I just want to jump in there as a prosecutor because it's clear I always

  • found people who would come in and say "Why am I being charged? There's somebody else

  • down the road that you didn't charge." That's never a defense. It's the case that's before

  • the court: whether this person did the crime and they should face consequences for it.

  • Obviously there's a lot to answer for during the recent history and some of those countries

  • that we're allied with. In Latin American countries people that allied on our side in

  • the Cold War, who then committed atrocities against their own people, are facing consequences

  • now because of amnesties from the '70s and '80s are being lifted so justice is being

  • done. But I will say that going forward in the future as we deal with policy and as we

  • deal with allies in the world, this question about whether we're supporting bad guys or

  • we're doing horrible things is something that's in front of us all the time, and I think that

  • as we've discovered during the spring in the Arab countries that allying ourselves with

  • folks that are committing human rights violations may not in the end be a wise strategy; that

  • indeed the best strategy is to work with people that don't commit atrocities.

  • Marvin Kalb: Ambassador, if you have a 30-second or so concluding thought that you'd like to

  • leave us with

  • Stephen Rapp: I saw it in Sierra Leone that when we prosecuted those that were the responsible

  • for these horrible atrocities, that the situation in terms of the rape, the killings, dramatically

  • fell and that they were able then to go through elections without lethal violence, change

  • power, and people had a chance to build their country back. And so I actually do think that

  • holding people to account can break this cycle of impunity and make it possible for people

  • to live freely.

Marvin Kalb: Mr. Ambassador, what were the international expectations as we entered the

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it