Tuesday, July 1, 2008

In concluding that the International Criminal Court is mishandling its cases involving Darfur, Julie Flint and and Alex de Waal ["Justice Off Course in Darfur," op-ed, June 28] misconstrued the status of those cases at the court and inaccurately described the relevant role of the ICC's chief prosecutor for Darfur, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The U.N. Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the court to give it jurisdiction that it would otherwise not have had over the atrocities there. The Security Council is the right place for the political decisions about dealing with the government of Sudan that Mr. de Waal and Ms. Flint urged on the prosecutor.

If it wishes, the Security Council can change its mind and require the court to defer further action in the Darfur cases. Instead, after hearing the prosecutor on June 5, the Security Council issued a presidential statement praising his work on Darfur and calling on the international community to help enforce ICC arrest warrants outstanding for alleged atrocities in Darfur.

The ICC charges that the subjects of those warrants, Ahmad Muhammad Harun and Ali Kushayb, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2003-04. This is precisely the time Ms. Flint and Mr. de Waal described as the "firestorm" period of maximum violence in Darfur. If the violence has died down or changed in form, that does not change the reality of the horror of those crimes nor the urgency of holding accountable those most responsible for them.

JOHN WASHBURN

Convener

American Non-Governmental Organizations

Coalition for the International Criminal Court

New York