Northwestern University Newsfeed

March 7, 2007

SCHEFFER: What this particular application does before the court is show how at a leadership level in Khartoum, a senior minister essentially coordinated with a militia leader to execute this ethnic cleansing campaign and the application focuses on four specific villages and what was done to those villages in a coordinated manner by these two individuals.

Despite the issuance of the arrest warrants, Scheffer doubts the two will be brought to The Hague for trial at any point in the near future…

SCHEFFER: The government of Sudan has already stated that they will do nothing to cooperate with the court in terms of the transfer of these individuals to The Hague to stand trial. The government of Sudan claims it has the responsibility of investigating these individuals…the ICC is a court of last resort and does not have a basis for seeking their prosecution. That, of course, is contested by the prosecutor who states that after two long years that it has not been demonstrated that they have the willingness or the ability to pursue these two individuals on the types of charges that the ICC wishes to apply to them.

Scheffer says the court’s action may validate the concerns that human rights workers have expressed about the region for some time, but it will do little to stop the violence…

SCHEFFER: There has been a failure on the part of the international community and on the African Union to effectively intervene to stop it. Even though there are some African Union peacekeepers on the ground doesn’t mean that it’s been an effective means to actually stop this and to save the lives of the civilian population. That failure of policy and political will on the part of the part of the international community is now a matter of historical record after four years of atrocity acts. It would be incorrect to look at the ICC as a means to stop it all.