Unable to resolve conflict in Libya by issuing an arrest warrant for former president Moammar Gadhafi, the International Criminal Court sought the opinion of experts brought together by a UCLA School of Law forum.
Libya formed a recent example of an ongoing issue ““ whether persecuting prominent human rights violators actually improves the stability and security of a country.
The ensuing discussion, the latest in a series of topics for the online forum, began in early October.
Five international experts on human rights and a variety of law school students and professors have weighed in on the topic, said law professor Richard Steinberg.
Afterwards, discussions are opened up to the general public, Steinberg said. The current forum will continue until February.
“We get a lot of visitors from around the world, even from places like China and the Middle East, and the level of conversation is very sophisticated,” Steinberg said.
The forum comes out with a new issue, or conversation topic, every couple of months, and brings together international experts in the field to give their opinions.
“It’s different than a regular law journal because you can interact with these comments,” said Andrew Grant, a UCLA law student and moderator for the forum.
“In the journals, you get isolated because you can say anything (in your article) if there is no one there who can pry into the deeper issues.”
The current issue, which was released last week, conerns whether persecuting someone who has committed human rights violations in an international court actually helps to resolve conflicts.
Last week, the forum received about 1400 visitors, Steinberg said.
Past topics have also included the conflict in the Gaza strip and the genocide in Darfur.
The forum was developed two years ago in a clinic about connections between human rights and technology that Steinberg taught. The project was then proposed to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who agreed to sponsor it, Steinberg said.
The ICC was created in 2002, and is the first international court established that is able to bring forward criminal charges against human rights violators around the world.
Six law students now work on the law forum and are responsible for posting comments and helping run the website.
The students also help research and assemble a packet of relevant studies or articles about the forum topic, which are distributed to the experts before they write their comments, said UCLA law student and forum moderator Kimia Ghalambor.
To come up with the topics for the forum, Moreno-Ocampo speaks to Steinberg about issues of current interest to the ICC and the forum group puts together a panel of experts to speak on that topic.
Later, Moreno-Ocampo and his staff read the experts’ opinions, as well as some responses from other forum visitors, and may attempt to implement them into the workings of the court, Steinberg said.
But it is not yet clear how the forum will influence the ICC because both the forum and the criminal court itself are in the developing stages, Steinberg said.
Because there is little existing case material for the ICC to use, this forum has the potential to dramatically impact the workings of the court, Grant said.
The ICC often has to face unprecedented cases, which require that it consult some kind of source material, such as expert discussions in the forum.
“We’re kind of like the first line of interpretation for them,” Grant said. “They do not have time to go out and seek experts to weigh in on these topics that are important to them, so we do it for them.”
The forum is considered unusual among law schools because it has a direct link to the ICC’s prosecutor’s office, Grant said.