the court is specifically instructed to look at conflicts in the wronged so that all sides might be prosecuted. unhappily it's not always the case that the tribunals have been able to prosecute all sides the yugoslavia tribunal did attempt to prosecute all sides but the rwanda tribunal failed and there are many people who think that the cases of the international criminal court in africa failed to look at all now i'm sure you encounter that in your legal practice and i saw it in the years of covering conflicts that war can turn pretty ordinary nonviolent people into mass murderers and the nature of that transformation is very very complex so i would argue if the war environment itself ignoring these fact and judging these people by the norms of peace time doesn't do justice doesn't he your question reaches the heart of a problem that the world is. not really willing to discuss

when i say the world i mean international bodies everybody knows that what you say about the almost inevitable reality of violence in war is true and therefore the question of moral responsibility for the individual person operating in the field is always. hard to ask. but why nevertheless why then is to ask though because i mean we have these very high profile tribunals and they are. politicians and ordinary people are put on trial but. is it really are often all true justice because some would argue that the reason these tribunals exist the simpler political to. confirm the historical narrative that is suitable for one side to the conflict or the international

community that intervened in that particular conflict it's a problem that has become very clear for example in the african cases but also in other cases around the world but the question that one of the questions that fits with your question is why would these particular conflicts chosen in the first place and not for example conflicts that would involve russia or china or america or britain or that there. and i think we we have we had a couple of cases in history most notably for example the second world war when many of the countries you just mentioned were involved and i think it is clear again from historical records that of the british they saw me if they are americans committed crimes against humanity during the second world war yet if our only germans who were prosecuted but when you look at something like for example the bombing of hiroshima or nagasaki beach result that like in more than one hundred

thousand of people instantaneously. killed this is all of you know on the same level as having gas chambers yet nobody broad those people who are authorized the bombing often i guess likely for no good reason the would strategic reason to justice so again this is this would be an example of not only a very selective justice but actually in a certain powers dominating in dictating what justice really is your absolutely right that there was no investigation of what. so-called war crimes or what are called war crimes were committed by the allies in the second world war what's really interesting is that by having these one sided trials. history is itself corrupted because people look back on the result of the trial one sided in the case of nuremberg and the tokyo trials and give less or no attention to the possibility of offenses having been committed

by the victorious side one of the real problems for the international criminal court is of course that russia china america are not members of the court but have the power in the security council to refer or to block the referral of other countries to the court now this is manifestly seen as unfair throughout the world and it may actually mean that the international court can and cannot survive that long because why eventually will african countries and other countries put up with a system that exposes them to treatment that russia or america china and other countries don't have to face now when you look at the recent conflict they were all highly personified indicates a few of us lobbied was the loss of a child was portrayed as the butcher of the balkans in the case of libya to was get dopy the chair of criminal and in the case of syria now it is

a thought who is supposedly killing his own people i wonder why is there so much out persist on the leaders because clearly they were not driving around and doing all the killing themselves societies in their national criminal systems in the international society and its international crime tribunals. needs to be able to divide some people of as having behaved so badly that they should really be regarded as criminals and that's not very much different from what happens in ordinary society but. what is perhaps very important to have in mind is that political and military leaders these days should be counted as knowing what people beneath them will do if they take certain decisions about propaganda about separating societies and accordingly it may be that the focus of attention should be much more on the leaders who bear responsibility rather than on the low

level offenders or perpetrators who commit particularly nasty crimes in the course of war leaders absolutely should know that but it would also include the leaders in the so-called civilized western world who often intervene in this conflict on behalf of one of the five then almost never brought to justice but before we go there let me transition to the tribunal on yugoslavia in which you took part wiping tears third of the indictee so far are the serbs is there any way to assess whether this figure is really reflective of the actual proportion of crimes committed the fact that in a multi sided conflict one side may have committed more crimes than the others and may have committed more serious crimes than the others doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a policy whereby if you're an international tribunal you try and prosecute all

sides if you're going to do that you should be honest and open about the fact that you may for example be pursuing. macedonia and or bosnian or kosovo. alleged war criminals for a lower level of criminality than you are applying for sir sir sir geoffrey you are absolutely the easy begin with the bigger question i'm sorry for interrupting you but the bigger question is of course why isn't the yugoslavia tribunal doing that i mean if you look at the length of the collective sentences for example that was handed out to serbs and crowds and bosnians you know they are they're highly skewed even if you want to argue that the serbs committed the largest amount or the largest number of crimes. you know from the statistics from the data are we got from disturb you know it is clear that it's simply impossible to have such

a highly skewed distribution in any given award simply statistically impossible knowing what we know about the nature of war and violence. the second thing that i wanted to say which in part addresses your question is that once you have a tribe you know in operation interested countries. operate with and through the tribunals or in attempts to write history that favors them and i'm afraid that many people would say. without in any way excusing. kosovo albanians bosnian muslims bosnian kratz without excusing any of those people some would say that serbia has been very very skillful. using the. process

to rewrite history in this free verbal way as he come from serbia if you look at the word. soviet so resisted the realities for brits and obscure documentation in order to hide what happened from both serbia and both of their. listeners or all citizens then you can see how successful you can be the srebrenica massacre is pretty much the only thing that people around the world know about the war in yugoslavia there are a lot of movies that were filmed about about this event a lot of songs popular songs were written about it but. i know that because you're had to deal with that on a legal basis i'm sure you know that. serbs would also say that before the srebrenica massacre took place there was also a mass killing of serbs by the both me and commander named nasser henri toure as

far as i know was acquitted and to your earlier point that the serbia tried to many played the the proceedings of the tribunal the number off indictments and convictions do not support that but let us come back to this issue of how just is really the international justice right after the break. we'll see british science. is going to. go to. market why not. find out what's really. happening to the global economy

with max concert for a no holds barred look global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. download the official up location to your cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television just. not with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. the civilized world produces more food than it needs. well people die of hunger in other countries. millions of victims every year. where a meal is the most value trade.

is flood or droughts to blame. if was a bad year without a train. we couldn't plods anything but. there was great hunger. is a good help comes too late and without good intentions. charity diplomacy and business. mission free accreditation free zones for chargers free. range humans free risk free. free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects free media. dot com you. hold it it. hold.

that's to be. very little.

welcome back to worlds apart and we are discussing international war crimes tribunal but sir geoffrey nice. sir geoffrey i know that your recently had to have been involved with the international criminal court and the i.c.c. is also fairly often accused of doling out so active justice do you agree with this assessment the i.c.c. had a difficult start with an unfortunate prosecutor luis moreno ocampo. and he left the very firm impression that the countries he pursued may have been being pursued

for political reasons and that that was extremely unfortunate. the focus on africa resides with earlier reflects arguably the interest of the international community in avoiding countries like. russia or america. and so on that might have things to answer for in taking a softer target but i'm happily it also reflects the recognition by some african countries for example uganda. of their ability to use the court. and turn it into a weapon of conflict and why wouldn't man american countries try to manipulate or influence court proceedings when world powers those countries that take pride in being standard bearers of human rights have not been brought to books for they are for they are for the crimes that they committed and here of course i'm alluding to the war in iraq you mentioned earlier that the united states is not

a signatory to the i.c.c. and for helen sake let me say that neither is russia but britain is for example so . technically speaking tony blair could have been brought. to corinth war for the british involvement in the iraqi war and let us just say that many of the war crimes were pretty committed there weren't talk him and the use of white phosphorus the false pretext for the war of the torturing the killings of detainees in iraq you. prevent be here under the supervision of western chips so i wonder how you can really try to justify you know court cases against african dictators when you are as a country britain as a country is shielding its own leader from justice of course. countries involved in international tribunals of all kinds are likely to try and manipulate them to

their own advantage whether a whether the law of the great powers have manipulated things the very advantage is not something one can answer that simply not quite as simple as your question would suggest without a full analysis of the evidence but that military action goes on is pretty obvious and everyone accepts it what that tells us are not accepted everyone acknowledges it what that tells us is that these processes if they are to have a future have to be open to scrutiny by the citizens of the world in whose service they say they they operate and not to be in any sense obscured now i'm going to just take you back to really important point that you should have had in learned in dealing with this rebellion sir what's very clear from the suppression that happened in the court of available intercepts showing conversations between

general manager and. milosevic now that evidence was suppressed from outside the court and the only conceivable reason one can think that it was suppressed was not just because it would have shown. things had been in srebrenica and how much belgrade was involved it may well have shown that because it would have shown how culpable the west might have been for taking insufficient action and these methods of manipulation and not restricted to african countries trying to turn the court. into a weapon of war against their enemies these these realities apply everywhere why then given the how much politics influences not only the composition of the trial but the legal procedures who is brought in and on what charges why we would try the integrity of those trials at all why should we give them as the world citizens to whom you alluded. earlier why should we give it any chance at all because we know

that as you said the world is now is just the distribution of power international power is highly skewed so why to have these tribunals at all well because you have to start somewhere you have to trust some people and you have to hope that things will. improve it's not that good to begin with then maybe who knows the ability to impose pressure on judges it certainly seems to have happened in cambodia but if you get to know the judges some of them are extremely or many of them maybe most of them are extremely concerned to do the job to the west of their ability let me and let me challenge again the point of you're making it's better to start somewhere because i would assume that if better to start with the countries that again consider themselves to be the flag bearer. right so if anything they're in

a much better position to demonstrate the wall of the delivery off true justice than any of their african countries actually speaking about africa i was going to ask you about one of the most recent cases where where the i.c.c. also attempted to intervene and i mean levy here they are says he was there from the very beginning presumably to collect evidence of war crimes but what surprised me and a lot of international observers most is that the chief justice of the i.c.c. at the time mr accompanied only tried to collect the at the evidence but also. tried to publicize them let's listen to what he had to say the time we're finding some elements going through this issue for appreciation of. maybe couldn't. showing the policy. they were binding

containers was probably to enhance the books if you do break it is now more or less established that that story was a hoax concocted by the rebels but what surprises me that most of the found body like mr accompany a universally recognized and renowned lawyer would go public with this evidence why the investigation is still ongoing because all we know from the movies i mean those of us who are not lawyers we know how much care goes into shielding the justices and the jurors and the judges from all that media exposure but you have here the chief justice for the world highest score in convicting mr gaddafi in media court before any legal procedures were even launched let alone complete it he's not the chief justice he's the chief prosecutor if you look at his earlier use of public city in many cases including sudan and kenya in particular it's not surprising

that he may find himself being extravagant in the language that he used more than that the whole libyan process some would argue and although i have to declare an interest because i have been involved in the libyan case to a limited degree but some would argue that. the court was used in a very obvious way to assist in the process of regime change because first of all the international community or parts of it england in particular france recognize the provisional of ministration in libya at a remarkably early date earlier really than international law would have allowed and then they found themselves supported by this extremely swift referral and decision by ocampo absent even at the time the ultimate indictment of the accord them that it was no. only politically motivated in delivering

a judgment but it was actually playing a very active role in influencing the events on the ground that's quieten that's quite a charge for any given chord let alone the international criminal court don't you think so. you know you obviously prefer very black and white propositions like absolute indictment but you alone what's worse than that i mean i just have to let me for you you have to let me finish i'm afraid it's a very serious criticism that can be made of the court and. if you if we look at the court it did suffer serious criticism campos term now the overall purpose of the call many citizens would say or use. worthy whether it's going to work for the reasons we've discussed is uncertain but a compass gone the sinew prosecutor there and one can only say that one hopes the

new court or the newly constructed court will learn from the mistakes that appear to have been made in his time can i just ask you the final question because we're really really running out of time also on leaving you just express to hold that possibly via the r.c.c. will learn from the mistakes of its. you know previous members and would alter its proceedings but. you know that the i.c.c. is still very relevant when it comes to leave that not only because of the justices and the legal counsel that is the night you save got off you but also because of the thousands of the so-called praga off the loyalists who are rocking all the costly be in many many prisons there and it's well documented that the scale of human rights abuses in libya is much greater now than it was ever a during the get off the rule so my question to you is why the i.c.c. that was so concerned about their observance of human rights in libya prior to here

the murder of gadhafi why is it so nonchalant about it now. i agree with you and i think the use of the word. is a very good word of all possibly use it in some later filings i make of the court they have shown themselves apparently willing to accept that libya can deliver justice to. saif gadhafi ill and although i suppose there's a new see if that becomes relevant rather than try and. right to have those men tried in the hague we're still awaiting that decision it may come out and everybody thinks that they will be compelled eventually to say with those people must be handed over for trial in the hague but you're quite right that thus far they have been singularly notional about the level of justice being offered in libya when for example in the kenya case they took

a radically different approach and were highly critical of kenya and determined to keep kenya after the president for trial in the hay so yes different standards and very troubling and yet be international justice apparently not so jap but unfortunately this is all they have time for believe joined up again playing playing time here on the part. is the perfect material it's a lie you make just a small change and you get a totally different result. not a pretty top not. going to this is a little complicated. it's like geometry we start by marking out the incision lines

as a guide. it's very intricate work. my life has changed a hundred percent. it was a field operating table here more than just a very small table as long as i had a flashlight and a working battery and i had a good enough environment to work it. was among them along with some other terrorist leaders. as if he's reminiscing about just. looking at you at the same time he's somewhere else. when i watch this. doesn't feel like me at all and. it's someone totally different someone i don't know.

live.

live live. live . he.

echoed our says it can grant asylum to be on their own whistleblower edward snowden while he's not on its soil the n.s.a. leaker remains holed up at a moscow airport. on the heels of snowden's revelations over britain's huge phone in the online topping it turns out the u.k. police are secretly monitoring social networks on a daily basis. egypt's military braces itself for mass rallies but the opposition are readying to take to the streets to venice anger at president morsi who is about to mark his first year in the top job.