Judge Selection for War Crimes Court Draws Fire

The election of new judges for a U.N. war crimes court drew protests over the lack of female candidates and qualified jurists, raising concerns about the U.N.’s great experiment in international justice.

The General Assembly, which on Wednesday chose 14 judges to fill positions on the tribunal, finally agreed after seven rounds of voting and much political dealing to include the sole female candidate, reelecting Florence Mumba.

The U.N. created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1993 to prosecute those suspected of being responsible for war crimes committed during the violent breakup of the Yugoslav federation.

Based in The Hague, the court is considered a model for the soon-to-form International Criminal Court. It has paid special attention to massacres of civilians that were linked to ethnicity and has treated rape as a war crime rather than a side effect of wartime chaos.

Mumba, a Zambian judge who is the tribunal’s vice president, delivered a groundbreaking verdict last month against three Bosnian Serbs, establishing sexual enslavement as a crime against humanity. The decision had been welcomed by human rights groups as a significant step in combating war crimes against women.

But some of those same organizations warned Wednesday that the tribunal would lose that hard-won ground without enough judges who understand sexual crimes. The Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, a private advocacy group, told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a letter that it was “appalling” that there was only one woman among the 25 candidates considered.

“There have been great prosecutors and judges--men--who have been very good on gender issues,” said Barbara Bedont of the women’s caucus. “But the presence of women judges has really been fundamental for moving along jurisprudence for women. It’s scary to think about how close they came to not having a single woman elected to the tribunal.”

Though observers were surprised that Mumba, as an experienced judge already on the panel, was the last to be elected, they were careful not to characterize that as a backlash against her landmark verdict. The results of such elections, diplomats said, typically have more to do with lobbying and favor-swapping than individual merit.

“The effect of it was very unfortunate, but it is not something you can prove as a deliberate effort,” said Donna Arzt, director of the Center for Global Law and Practice at Syracuse University. “But given the nature of the tribunal--that so many of the crimes are crimes against women--it’s certainly odd that only one woman was even nominated.”

The United Nations is continually pressing to increase the number of women in its agencies. Last year, the Security Council passed a resolution urging member states to achieve a better gender balance, especially in conflict mediation and prevention roles. The few women who do serve the U.N. in the arena of international justice--notably Mumba, war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte of Switzerland and the president of the Rwanda war crimes tribunal, South African Navanethem Pillay--have had a significant influence.

Pillay set an international precedent in 1997 by putting rape on the docket as a war crime after hearing testimony about rape camps in Rwanda. Del Ponte and her predecessor, Louise Arbour, made sure that sexual crimes were treated seriously from the outset, setting up counseling centers to help women overcome the stigma of rape and testify against perpetrators.

“The lack of women put forward suggests that governments aren’t paying attention,” said Regan Ralph, director of the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. “Governments need to put people with experience in sex crimes on the panel--men and women. But the leaders thus far have been women.”

Other jurists were bothered not only by the lack of women among candidates but also by the overall lack of experience. The deputy prosecutor of the Hague court, Graham Blewitt, said last week that none of the new nominees had sufficient experience as criminal trial judges, warning that it would be “an absolute disaster” to have a trial chamber made up of academics and civil court judges.

The U.N. extended its deadline to encourage additional nominations by member nations but finally proceeded with 25 candidates. Of the 14 judges elected Wednesday, eight had previously served on the panel.