Prof. Sheehan: War Crime Tribunals 'Rarely Deliver on Their Promises'
June 22, 2021
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Writing in Newsweek, Ivan Sascha Sheehan, associate professor and executive director of The University of Baltimore's School of Public and International Affairs, says that the recent rise in interest in prosecuting war criminals via tribunals, particularly in Africa, may work against the original goal of bringing wrongdoers to justice and helping to secure the peace.
"War crime tribunals—ostensibly a mechanism for confronting the past—rarely deliver on their righteous promises," Prof. Sheehan writes. "They can become political footballs used for simultaneously shaming rivals and covering one's own sins. They can become stopgaps for warring parties looking to delay justice or spoilers for fringe elements looking to collapse peace agreements. At their worst, in their insistence on finding someone to blame for past crimes, they run the risk of enabling ongoing abuses."
Prof. Sheehan says the Biden administration should pursue economic sanctions against war-crime perpetrators.
"As we reconsider our approach to old African conflicts and new ones, we're better off living in the real world than trying to implement a fantasy ideal that mainly serves as a political advantage to whoever can wield it best," he writes.
Read the article in Newsweek.
Learn more about Prof. Sheehan and the School of Public and International Affairs, part of The University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs.