The Hague, a city for international justice for 100 years, is about to add one more court
April 10, 2006 (THE HAGUE) — It started more than 100 years ago with a somewhat cynical call by the czar of Russia for a disarmament conference that, for reasons of diplomatic niceties and international rivalries, ended up in The Hague — the small capital of a neutral country.
Since that 1899 peace conference created the first panel to arbitrate disputes among nations, the Dutch city near the North Sea coast has become host to a confusing array of international courts, law enforcement agencies and watchdogs.
The city is about to add one more when the Sierra Leone special court moves its biggest war crimes case to The Hague — the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor — borrowing prison and courtroom facilities from one of the international courts already functioning here.
Taylor is accused of directing Sierra Leone rebels in rape, murder, child recruitment and trafficking in guns and diamonds during a decade-long civil war. Taylor’s judges deemed it too risky to hold his trial in Sierra Leone, and asked that it be held in the Netherlands, far from supporters who could cause trouble.
The choice of The Hague was natural. Dutch police have a settled routine for guarding the world’s most infamous war crimes suspects and shuttling them between jail and courthouse. The government has “host country” agreements with the courts for issuing visas and providing facilities to jurists, witnesses and journalists covering trials.
The Dutch have been polishing their procedures since the 1899 conference, convened at the suggestion of Czar Nicholas who wanted a 10-year freeze on Europe’s madcap arms race — mainly because Russia was way behind.
Though doomed from the start, the conference nonetheless began a tradition of bringing world leaders together to discuss peace.
It also put The Hague on the map.
“The Hague proved an inspired choice,” wrote U.S. historian Barbara W. Tuchman. With its smiling citizens, flowering summer countryside, windmills and canals, “the once quiet town, a ‘gracious anachronism’ of brick houses and cobblestone streets, bustled with welcome.”
Parts of The Hague retain a 19th century veneer, despite its sprawling glass City Hall in the town center and tall, imaginative office blocks on the outskirts.
Still small and manageable, it is nonetheless home to some 150 international organizations.
The proliferation of courts leads to understandable puzzlement over which does what. Among them:
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, housed in the former headquarters of an insurance company, was created in 1993 to prosecute those most responsible for the Balkans wars. It has indicted 161 people and convicted 44 of them. Last month, former President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in his prison cell just months before his 4-year-long trial was due to end.
The International Criminal Court set up shop in 2002 in a former telecommunications tower, overcoming a rigorous U.S. campaign to block its creation. The world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, it received its first and so far only suspect last month, former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga. It also is investigating war crimes suspects in Uganda and in the Sudanese district of Darfur.
The International Court of Justice, often called the World Court, occupies the neo-Baroque Peace Palace in the city center, an elegant counterpoint to the bland office blocks of its sister courts. A Hague landmark since 1913, it was built by the Scottish-American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, who along with Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, was among the philanthropists who financed the early days of the peace movement.
Unlike the other courts which judge individual war crimes suspects, the World Court — which marks its 60th anniversary on Wednesday — adjudicates disputes among U.N. member states and delivers nonbinding legal opinions sought by other U.N. bodies. It can imprison no one, but its role as the U.N.’s principle judicial organ gives it authority.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration, for which Carnegie build the Peace Palace where it still sits, is rarely heard from since its deliberations are published only by agreement of the parties. In its most recent case, it arbitrated the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Hague also is home to the Europol police agency and Eurojust, a parallel umbrella group for European prosecutors. It also has the U.N chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
(ST/AP)