Law Over Gun

BEIRUT -- One of the great weaknesses in the modern Middle East that explains much of the chronic violence and political thuggery of the past half century is the thin state of the rule of law in comparison with the rule of the gun. 

Three separate developments now taking place in different parts of the Arab world might have real consequences for this region's future: the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment against the Sudanese president Omar Hassan Bashir, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) approved by the Iraqi parliament to see the United States withdraw fully by the end of 2011, and the mixed Lebanese-international special tribunal that will try those to be accused of killing former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and a dozen other public figures.

These three very different dynamics have one thing in common that is unusual and crucial for the Arab World: They bring into play law and accountability as antidotes to runaway homegrown political killings and brutality, and foreign military interference. They may well reveal whether we are destined long to remain plagued by political violence and dictatorship, or can anticipate a better future where citizens and entire societies are protected by the rule of law.

The Iraqi-American SOFA is the most complex of the three, because of its hazy moral legitimacy. The Iraqi law passed by an elected parliament emanates from a process of national rebuilding that took place under the nose, and in the wake of the invasion by, the American-led armada that dismantled the previous state structure. Nevertheless, it is a law, passed by a broadly representative parliament, in a sort-of-sovereign country, and such a law is always preferable to American and British soldiers orchestrating parliamentary elections or shooting up wedding parties in the desert.

Whether the rule of law takes hold in Iraq remains to be seen, because it is battling two other powerful and destructive forces that have been unleashed or exacerbated by the Anglo-American invasion and its aftermath: ethno-sectarian tensions and divisions among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis and others in the country, and rampant resort to the gun -- via freelance criminality, or local and foreign-supported political militias and tribal forces -- that will take years to overcome. 

Regarding Sudan, the ICC judges will soon decide whether or not to approve the July 2008 request by Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Both legal and political arguments will decide this issue. In the final analysis a strong stance by the ICC to prevent and punish genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Africa would be a timely and welcomed move. If the evidence is credible and the ICC indicts and one day tries those accused of such crimes, there is a chance that others in future might be deterred from carrying out similar atrocities. 

The most important of the three cases is the Lebanese-international tribunal for the killings in Lebanon, which is expected to start work in The Hague in March, according to an announcement this week by the UN Secretary General. This is a potentially historic development because the original decisions establishing the court and launching the investigating commission on the killings were unanimously approved by the UN Security Council.

With the commission now slowly moving from Lebanon to The Hague, its Canadian head, Daniel Bellemare, will take on the role of prosecutor at the tribunal. He is expected to release his final report on December 4, for review by the U.N. Security Council, with indictments expected in February

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon correctly stressed that the tribunal would "send a strong signal that the government of Lebanon and the United Nations remain committed to ending impunity in Lebanon...[by delivering] the highest standards of international justice."

What a nice change that would be, if political assassinations in Lebanon or genocidal crimes elsewhere in the Middle East, were subjected to the rule of law, a credible, independent court, and the highest standards of international justice. 

Arab governments themselves have been unable to implement such basic elements of justice, human dignity and good governance. Foreign armies that routinely come into the region to promote democracy have usually only strengthened the local dictators who rally mass public resentment again the invaders.

The resort to the ICC and the U.N. Security Council represents a third option that deserves maximum support from the Arab world and elsewhere, even though the same standards of accountability applied to Arab culprits are not yet applied with the same moral clarity or political vigor to crimes and rampages against Arabs by Israel or Western armies. That must and will come with time. The critical first step is to implant the rule of law as an antidote to political violence and killings in the Arab World, and to stop the impunity that assassins, despots and criminals now enjoy.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.