Following the two-year anniversary of the genocide sentence in Guatemala, experts on transitional justice and rule of law – including US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Stephen Rapp – gathered on May 11 to share reflections and analysis about the genocide case.
In Ambassador Rapp’s comments, he highlighted the importance of the case and the ongoing commitment of the US government to support victims’ struggle for justice and an independent judiciary:
“My role With President Obama’s administration is to work with these international courts, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), so that they can be effective – but recognizing always that it’s better when justice happens near the scene of the crime, near where the victims live, near the affected communities.
Even in the principles now of international justice, we’ve established that certainly it’s important that we hold responsible — if the evidence is there — the most powerful people in societies. And if it we can do that at the national level, that’s where it should be done. At the ICC they call that complementarity – that the international system is only a complement; it only fills in the gaps where the national system fails.
But we know, and you know, how challenging it can be to establish justice against powerful forces in society; power does not yield willingly, it doesn’t yield to orders, necessarily, on a piece of paper, and can use the kind of power and violence they’re accused of to intimidate and destroy the possibility of fair justice. Continue reading
