International and Domestic Efforts in Human Rights Protection

Nternational and Domestic Efforts in Human Rights Protection

This particular batch of readings was highly interesting, and very educational. Collectively, these readings explored various notions and reasons for the process of international courts attempting to learn more about human rights criminal activity predominantly from an international perspective. Individually, these readings detailed various aspects of truth commissions and of the International Criminal Court, both of which are fairly influential in the investigation of previously existent human rights violations.

Victor Peskin's 2009 article, "Caution and Confrontation in the International Criminal Court's Pursuit of Accountability in Uganda and Sudan" provided a clear look at some of the internal processes and challenges faced by the ICC's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In particular, this article focused on why it was advantageous for the prosecutor to initially attempt conciliatory stances about the regimes he was looking to attempt to pursue human rights violation cases in, Uganda and Sudan, and why it was that this attorney was then forced to utilize more stringent measures of prosecution ("confrontational") (Peskin 655) to aid his work. The primary conclusions that one can gather from this article are that essentially, the ICC has no formal army or source of power of its own (particularly due to the lack of cooperation from the United States) and is dependent upon the host nation of its investigation for information regarding previously committed crimes. In that case, the prosecutor and others who engage in this sort of role have a very difficult time fulfilling their job obligations.

The link between Peskin's article and that of Jaymie Mayerfield, who composed 2002's "Who Shall Be Judge?: The United States, the International Criminal Court, and the Global enforcement of Human Rights" was extremely palpable after just a few paragraphs. Mayerfield was able to explain the infrastructure that the ICC was based upon, and detailed more of the history of this organization from the perspective of both its supporters as well as its detractors. Moreover, the author explored the inherent conflict between this organization and its inception (which was in 2002) and the United States, which initially supported it and then has refused to do so ever since voting against it. The conclusion that one can draw from this article, which was meticulously researched by the author and even drew on more than a little theoretical modeling from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, is that the U.S. both was and still is afraid that its authority to commit many of the violations of human rights would be challenged if it formally enrolled in the ICC. The fact that this powerful nation has chosen not to involve itself in the efforts of the ICC sheds a considerable amount of doubt as to the United States' "unidirectional" (Mayerfield 93) attempt to regulate human rights violations, especially in light of its war on terror and apparent imperialist tendencies.

Finally, Priscilla Hayner's 1994 article, "Fifteen Truth Commissions" contextualizes what very well may have set the precedent for the ICC, truth commissions. This article provides the reader with vital information by explaining how truth commissions were initially set up, strictly to detail information and history regarding human rights violations that occurred in the past, and by presenting highly detailed synopses of the investigations and findings of several influential truth commissions that occurred before 1994. The primary conclusions that one can draw from this article is the severe limitations of the truth commissions, which are largely at the mercy of a host nation to provide evidence and documentation for its history of human rights violations.

One of the most salient points of all three readings was the point made in Hayner's article that truth commissions, which are directly related to the attempts of the ICC, do not serve so much to identify the truth as they do to "acknowledge" (Hayner 607) the truth of what happened in the past. Also, the point that truth commissions are primarily about the past and provide a degree of amnesty for present ruling parties or criminals was fairly important, as well as the fact that only in rare instances is formal prosecution attempted after these commissions. Although one really cannot consider too many weaknesses existent in these readings, the amount of time that Mayerfield devoted to Locke's political theorizing detracted some from his overarching point about why the U.S. should eventually become involved with the ICC.