Scheffer Urges Creation of World Court

David J. Scheffer '75, U.S. ambassador for War Crimes Issues, expressed his hope for the establishment of a permanent international court in a speech in the Leverett House library last night.

Invited to speak by the Woodbridge Society of International Students, Scheffer laid out the conditions that favor establishing an international court. He said that since the end of the Cold War the U.S. has been able to pay more attention to the prosecution of war crimes.

Scheffer said he believes the U.S.--no longer distracted by the Cold War--has been able to focus on the recent atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. These new concerns have unveiled a new threat, he said.

"We simply cannot let war criminals set the agenda of the 21st century," Scheffer said.

The fear of future atrocities and the success of the ad hoc war crimes tribunals created to deal with Yugoslavian and Rwandan criminals have paved the way for a conference in Rome this summer, according to Scheffer.

The goal of the conference is to establish a permanent international court, but Scheffer cautioned that obstacles remain.

"The road to Rome remains steep," he said, calling his efforts to incorporate the legal systems of myriad countries in a new world court "a procedural Tower of Babel."

Scheffer identified the court's ambiguous relationship with the United Nations Security Council as a major stumbling block.

The Security Council should play an integral role in bringing crimes to the court's attention, Scheffer said. Derided as an infringement of the political independence of the court, Scheffer noted that the court's prosecutors would have no mandate without the "political clout" of the United Nations.

Scheffer also warned that forming and maintaining an international court would be costly. Alluding to the $118 million spent on just the two Yugoslavian and Rwandan tribunals last year, Scheffer said a world court could possibly incur the increased costs of handling several atrocities at a time.

Despite these problems, Scheffer said he remains hopeful.

Scheffer said he sees a solution to the larger conflict between national sovereignty and the court's jurisdiction in the principle of "complementarity." According to this principle, the international court would defer to state courts if they are deemed sound by an independent prosecutor.

"The international court is not designed to be a court of first resort; it is designed to be a court of last resort," Scheffer said.