Volume 22 - Issue 05, Feb. 26 - Mar. 11, 2005 India's National Magazine from the publishers of THE HINDU Home Contents COVER STORY The Law of Empire? H. RAJAN SHARMA The trial of Saddam Hussein and his former associates by the Iraqi government is another instance of the Bush administration's self-serving distaste for the rule of law. AFP Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before a judge at an undisclosed location in Baghdad. A file picture. AS the election process was on in Iraq, much of the debate in the United States media and among the political class in Washington focussed on the theoretical, even philosophical, question of whether liberal democracy can be an effective antidote to terrorism, particularly the sort perpetrated by extremists in the Islamic world. In his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush chose to affiliate himself consciously with this newly minted and already fashionable creed of America's neo-conservatives. Most significantly, the judicial authority before which these trials will be conducted is of uncertain legality itself. For one, it will not be an international tribunal authorised by an appropriate resolution of the United Nations or the Security Council. In fact, the U.N. has publicly refused to be associated or affiliated in any way with the prosecutions that will be carried out in Iraq. For another, that judicial authority will most assuredly not be an ordinary, Iraqi court applying domestic, Iraqi law. Instead, as its very name suggests, the "Iraqi Special Tribunal" will be an entirely unusual and hybrid creature with both Iraqi and non-Iraqi judges at the trial and appellate levels, adjudicating not only crimes under international law but also offences taken from domestic, Iraqi legislation and applying penalties taken entirely from Iraqi law to all of these offences. This | |
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