How the mighty are falling

AP

Charles Taylor hears history in the making

AS THE world's first permanent war-crimes court celebrates its fifth birthday this week, the mood is upbeat: formal investigations are under way in four countries; it has issued eight arrest warrants; it is about to gain its 105th member, Japan; its first trial begins in the autumn, and America, once hostile, now sounds decidedly more friendly. Indeed, the administration recently said it would, if asked, consider assisting the court's work on Darfur.

So far, the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is allowed to investigate atrocities perpetrated since its founding in July 2002, has no big scalps to display. Its eight accused comprise five leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda, a janjaweed leader in Darfur, a Sudanese government minister and a Congolese warlord. But it has at least one ex-president, Ange-Félix Patassé of the Central African Republic, in its sights, and more may be targeted soon.

So these are uncomfortable times for tyrants, past or present. They used to be able to escape justice through brutality at home, or if that failed, fleeing abroad. Now justice's arms are looking longer and more muscular. This week Charles Taylor, a notorious Liberian ex-president and warlord, appeared at Sierra Leone's Special Court, transferred to The Hague, on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Justice may also be catching up with Hissène Habré, Chad's former president. After living in exile in Senegal for the past 17 years, he is now facing trial before a special war-crimes court set up by the Senegalese government earlier this year on the orders of the African Union. It was only after Belgium had threatened to try Mr Habré under its “universal jurisdiction” law that African leaders decided to abandon their tradition of mutual protection and vote for his prosecution by one of their own.

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, better-known as “Chemical Ali” for killing tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds with poison gas, was last month sentenced to death by an American-sponsored court along with two other henchmen. Mr Hussein himself and two close allies have been executed. More expect the same fate as the trials continue.

Like Chile's Augusto Pinochet and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Cambodia's Khmers Rouges, Pol Pot, managed to escape justice by dying. But his surviving underlings may not be so lucky. Last month the final obstacle to the long-promised genocide trials of an expected dozen or so Khmer Rouge leaders was removed when agreement was reached on the rules of procedure for the special “hybrid” international tribunal, set up by the UN and the Cambodian government.

In Lebanon, where attempts to create a special court to try the assassins of Rafik Hariri, the country's former prime minister, have been going on for more than a year, the Security Council has at last decided to take the bull by the horns, voting to set up a tribunal “of international character” without the approval of Lebanon's deadlocked parliament. Lebanon is already holding eight suspects, including four Syrian generals. Syria, and its Lebanese protégés, Hizbullah, have denounced the decision.

Extradition adds another dimension, giving national justice systems a global reach. Two Argentine judges want Spain to send Isabel Perón, the country's former president, home to face a war-crimes trial. Peru is pressing Chile to agree the extradition of its former president, Alberto Fujimori, on human-rights and corruption charges.

It is easy to pooh-pooh international courts. After the creation of the world's first international war-crimes tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo at the end of the second world war, it took nearly half a century before another one was established—the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up by the UN in The Hague in 1993. But since then, progress has been impressive. Of the 161 people the ICTY has indicted, only four are still on the run; 59 have been convicted.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up the following year, has done rather less well. Of the 70 or so indicted, 18 are still at large, including Félicien Kabuga, a multi-millionaire and alleged bankroller of the 1994 genocide. But among the 28 so far convicted are Rwanda's former prime minister, Jean Kambanda, and seven of his ministers.

The ICTY's fugitives include, of course, two of its most wanted suspects—Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, and his top general, Ratko Mladic. But since last month's arrest of Zdravko Tolimir, Mr Mladic's top aide, hopes have again been raised of the general's possible imminent arrest. Indeed, Carla Del Ponte, the court's chief prosecutor, came back from a visit to Serbia last month saying that Belgrade had told her that “they will give me Mladic”.

Few of these once-powerful gentlemen (and one lady) ever dreamed that they would—or could—be held to account for their past crimes. But times have changed. As Libya's president, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, said anxiously when his former protégé, Liberia's Mr Taylor, was handed over to Sierra Leone's Special Court last year after three years on the run: “This means that every head of state could meet a similar fate. It sets a serious precedent.” Fingers crossed.