{"id":19787,"date":"2020-03-05T10:21:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=19787"},"modified":"2020-03-07T03:02:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T08:02:34","slug":"international-criminal-court-offers-hope-to-afghanistans-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=19787","title":{"rendered":"International Criminal Court Offers Hope to Afghanistan\u2019s Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. HUMAN RIGHTS . <\/p>\n

An article by Patricia Gossman from Human Rights Watch<\/a> (reprinted according to Creative Commons License)<\/p>\n

Afghans who are skeptical about whether the\u00a0US-Taliban agreement\u00a0<\/a> and planned intra-Afghan peace talks\u00a0<\/a> can deliver a better future, now have reason to believe that justice might not be squandered in the process. Today, judges on the\u00a0International Criminal Court\u00a0<\/a> (ICC) authorized the court\u2019s prosecutor to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\nAfghan family leaves site of attack in Kabul,\u00a0Afghanistan, December 22, 2016.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a9 2016 Reuters<\/center><\/p>\n

It was a rocky road to get here. In November 2017, after a more than 10-year analysis of the Afghanistan situation, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked the court to approve an\u00a0investigation <\/a>\u00a0into alleged crimes, including targeted attacks on civilians by the Taliban and other insurgents; torture, rape, and enforced disappearances by Afghan police and security forces; and torture by the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Article continued in right column.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:<\/div>\n
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Can the International Criminal Court provide justice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from left column.)<\/p>\n

Despite acknowledging the court\u2019s jurisdiction over the crimes and that Afghanistan was making no effort to seek accountability, an ICC pre-trial chamber\u00a0rejected the investigation\u00a0<\/a> as not being in the \u201cinterests of justice.\u201d In the ruling, the judges noted that \u201cchanges within the relevant political landscape\u201d \u2013 likely referring to the US-Taliban talks as well as the\u00a0Trump administration\u2019s public attacks\u00a0<\/a> on the ICC \u2013 would make an investigation too difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in today\u2019s decision, the appeals chamber overruled the lower court\u2019s interpretation of the court\u2019s founding treaty \u2013 which had been widely criticized,\u00a0including by Human Rights Watch\u00a0<\/a> \u2013 and allowed the investigation to go ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coming amidst genuine movement toward peace talks, the ruling is an important reminder of the costs of impunity. The\u00a0Bonn Agreement,<\/a>\u00a0signed in December 2001 after the defeat of the Taliban government, failed to provide justice for rights violations by all sides and fueled further atrocities by allowing serious human rights abusers to maintain official and unofficial positions of power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s decision reaffirms the ICC\u2019s role as an institution that might change these dynamics by challenging entrenched impunity. It has offered Afghans who have long sought justice hope that they may one day see it realized.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. HUMAN RIGHTS . An article by Patricia Gossman from Human Rights Watch (reprinted according to Creative Commons License) Afghans who are skeptical about whether the\u00a0US-Taliban agreement\u00a0 and planned intra-Afghan peace talks\u00a0 can deliver a better future, now have reason to believe that justice might not be squandered in the process. Today, judges on the\u00a0International … Continue reading International Criminal Court Offers Hope to Afghanistan\u2019s Victims<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,13,80],"tags":[11,31],"class_list":["post-19787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global","category-human-rights","category-south-asia","tag-global","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}