Michael Hill: Hussein's Trial Follows Path Taken By Other Nations
As the trial of Saddam Hussein was set to open today, Iraq joins the long list of nations - from Germany to South Africa, Yugoslavia to Cambodia - that have tried to deal with a violent and oppressive past to help carve out a more peaceful future based on the rule of law.
The experience of these countries has shown that it is a difficult task that could either rally Iraqi society around its nascent democracy or deepen the divisions that threaten to pull the country apart.
To succeed, experts on international law say, Hussein's trial must be viewed as efficient from within Iraq, and as scrupulously fair from without.
"I think my biggest fear is that rather than focusing the world's attention on the horrendous crimes of Saddam Hussein, that the focus would be on the potential unfairness of the trial," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, based in New York. "It is essential to avoid giving Saddam Hussein, of all people, the moral high ground as victim of an unfair trial."
Today's opening session was expected to be primarily procedural. In the United States, most of those hearings could have been handled with pretrial motions. That was not the case in Baghdad in part because this special Iraqi tribunal wanted to let Iraqi citizens see that the trial was under way, even if it quickly adjourns for several weeks, even months.
"The legitimacy of the new Iraqi government rests to a very large extent on the fact that it is not Saddam Hussein's government," said Mortimer Sellers, an expert on international law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. And Hussein's trial was intended as a demonstration of that.
"Externally, it is very important that the trial be conducted carefully according to very high standards of legal procedure," Sellers said. "The greatest threat to the success of the trial will probably be criticism it may receive from people in Europe and the United States if it is not done very, very carefully."
The experience of these countries has shown that it is a difficult task that could either rally Iraqi society around its nascent democracy or deepen the divisions that threaten to pull the country apart.
To succeed, experts on international law say, Hussein's trial must be viewed as efficient from within Iraq, and as scrupulously fair from without.
"I think my biggest fear is that rather than focusing the world's attention on the horrendous crimes of Saddam Hussein, that the focus would be on the potential unfairness of the trial," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, based in New York. "It is essential to avoid giving Saddam Hussein, of all people, the moral high ground as victim of an unfair trial."
Today's opening session was expected to be primarily procedural. In the United States, most of those hearings could have been handled with pretrial motions. That was not the case in Baghdad in part because this special Iraqi tribunal wanted to let Iraqi citizens see that the trial was under way, even if it quickly adjourns for several weeks, even months.
"The legitimacy of the new Iraqi government rests to a very large extent on the fact that it is not Saddam Hussein's government," said Mortimer Sellers, an expert on international law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. And Hussein's trial was intended as a demonstration of that.
"Externally, it is very important that the trial be conducted carefully according to very high standards of legal procedure," Sellers said. "The greatest threat to the success of the trial will probably be criticism it may receive from people in Europe and the United States if it is not done very, very carefully."