How many cases can the ICC handle?

On May 4th, Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), will report to the United Nations Security Council on his investigation into alleged crimes committed in Libya. Weeks later he will seek arrest warrants from the ICC, most likely against Muammar Quaddafi and high-ranking members of his government. This is laudable.  But the ICC currently has open, formal investigations in the DRC, CAR, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya, in addition to Libya. Additionally, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is reportedly investigating alleged abuses in Afghanistan, Chad, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Nigeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the Republic of Korea. There is strong pressure for the Security Council to refer crimes committed during the 2008 Gaza War to the ICC, and Ocampo has been rather transparent about his desire to open a formal investigation into abuses committed in Côte d’Ivoire. Additionally, there have been calls for the ICC to prosecute crimes committed in nearly every Middle Eastern country where the Arab Spring has sprung, most notably Yemen. Can the Court handle this caseload?

You’re Not Gonna Protest!

CNN is reporting that the Egyptian military has outlawed protests in the country, threatening offenders with jail time. There are also reports that the military is rounding up those pushing for greater democratic reform in the country, and that some have been subjected to torture.

This is an extremely worrying development, and one hopes that the Egyptian people’s push for democracy is not subverted by the military it so respects and had helped protect protesters before Mubarak stepped down. It is also worrisome given the U.S. military’s strong ties to the Egyptian military and the influence the U.S. apparently wielded over it during the protests.

Collateral Damage in Humanitarian Interventions

Although I discount the Libyan government’s assertions that many civilians have already been killed as a result of Operation Odyssey Dawn, it is inevitable that Libyan civilians will be killed by bombs dropped by Western planes or missiles launched from Western ships. Are such deaths excusable in an action the goal of which is to protect civilians, or do they render the action perverse?

Congressional Approval Required?

Over on Slate.com, Weigel argues that Barack Obama needn’t have sought congressional approval for the military intervention in Libya because the Congress (or some of its leadership, minus Kucinich) doesn’t mind the fact that he didn’t seek their consultation and approval.

My expertise in law and international law is limited (I’m not a lawyer), but from the cases I’ve studied, it seems to me that this argument holds a grain of truth. The Supreme Court has at times found that where the Congress abdicates its power to the executive relative to foreign policy, the president can exercise that power. So basically as long as the Congress doesn’t mind, it’s OK. Plus the War Powers Act stipulates only that the president notify Congress of military action within 48 hours of the commencement of that action, which Obama did.

That said, I wish Obama had consulted with and sought congressional approval before intervening in Libya. This could have been as simple as asking Congress to give him permission to take all necessary action to execute UN resolutions relevant to the Libyan situation.  But he didn’t, and this is now very much Obama’s war, and his alone.

Referees of Civil War

Very quickly, I’d like to bring up, in the context of America’s soon to be intervention in Libya, the fact that we still don’t know what we would be fighting for save the broad ideal of democracy. Barack Obama drew a line in the sand, saying that our goal would not extend beyond the protection of civilians, but are the U.S. and its allies then acting as referees in a game of civil war? And if they are, are they going to be impartial?

Of course not. Quaddafi must go; he is persona non grata throughout most of the world. How, then, does mission creep not occur if the rebels are on the verge of losing?

Humanitarian Intervention is Back

With the international community authorized to use force to protect civilians in Yemen, the West is once again trying out humanitarian intervention. Andrew Sullivan is critical of this latest venture, and has criticized Barack Obama for not fully enunciating a rationale for using force in Libya. He asks pointedly, why are we getting involved in Libya and not in Yemen, Bahrain, or elsewhere? My first reaction to this was to imagine that a different sort of “mission creep” might occur when and if military action is used against Libya. Might the moral rationale used by Obama draw us deeper into the unrest occurring elsewhere in the Middle East? Could this be the beginning of a more forceful U.S. foreign policy in that area?

Generally speaking, though, Sullivan’s critique echoes critiques of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy that I have heard in school and in the media. Basically, Clinton was said to have a patchwork foreign policy that involved intervening in some states, but not others. The obvious example is Rwanda, the memory of which many suspect might be driving the Obama administrations decision today. But it seems to me that U.S. policy has long been that we will intervene when our moral and strategic interests coincide with one another. Moreover, most presidents’ foreign policies have notable exceptions. George W. Bush, for example, pushed for democracy in the Middle East, but gave legitimacy to Muammar Quaddafi when he gave up his nuclear ambitions. Still, Obama has not stated what our national interest is in Libya?

Liberate Libya? At What Cost?

Underreported in the Libyan crisis is a characteristic of the thawar, or revolutionaries, that puts human rights advocates — along with advocates of intervention — in something of a bind: the minimum age for the thawar draft is only only 15. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but regardless of the percentage of the rebel army that is under the age of 18, any international intervention would be aiding a force that conscripts child soldiers.

Aiding pro-democracy forces is an admirable idea, but how to we reconcile the fact that such support implicitly supports the use of child soldiers? I suppose that imposing a no-fly zone would be the least detestable option. But how much of a difference would that actually make if the rebel forces remain poorly-trained and poorly-armed. During the conflict in Bosnia, the no-fly zone and arms ban imposed by NATO kept the Bosnian military from securing adequate weapons with which to fight Serbian forces. The same could be expected to occur in Libya. But if the West were to arm the Libyan rebels, they would literally be placing guns in the hands of child soldiers.

Anderson Under Attack

CNN’s Anderson Cooper was attacked by pro-Mubarak forces in Egypt today. There are those that have criticized Cooper for getting too close to the story, and thus too emotional, but I haven’t heard of many other cable news stars that would willingly enter the fray instead of staying in a nice, cozy studio.

Egypt, the US, and the Internet

Over at the Daily Dish, Conor Friedersdorf highlights the irony of the US Senate contemplating giving the president the power to pull the plug on the internet (with no judicial oversight) while Hosni Mubarak did just that in an attempt to quell protests against his government.

We laugh at Tea Party-types that call parts of the Obama agenda dictatorial, but this is exactly the type of power that our founders wanted to keep out of government hands when they wrote the Constitution (or would  have, if they could have known that the internet would exist).

Check that last statement: the Tea Party cries tyrannical wolf and makes legitimate debate over the real encroachment of government on personal liberty appear hyperbolic. And that includes warrantless wiretapping, the indefinite detention of US citizens as terrorists, and the use of torture.

More on Egypt

Since I’ve been remiss in my rather limited coverage of the crisis in Egypt, I turn to the brilliant staff of writers at Slate to help me out. They’ve put out a number of great articles that should be required reading for anyone looking to seriously and critically think about the revolution in Egypt and its overall importance:

1. The Explainer details the ways in which Egyptians’ right to free speech is curtailed.
2. Hitchens argues that dictators like Mubarak face overthrow not because of their ruthless control over their citizenry, but because they insult their citizens by holding fake elections and the like. He also reminds us that the lure of the stable dictatorship is illusory and ought to be tossed in the trash.
3. Shmuel Rosner preaches caution, because revolutions are unpredictable and dangerous. Remember Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, which Rosner points out has crashed and burned.
4. Foreign Policy profiles eight US allies besides Mubarak that embarrass the US.

Also check out this brief NPR interview with Egyptian dissident and Harvard professor, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who discusses US aid to Egypt and how it can use that aid to promote human rights.