We noted a few months aggo the ground-breaking indictment of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo is facing pressure to withdraw the indictment; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports Moreno-Ocampo will stand firm, but it appears the ICC lacks support in Africa, with Benin's president going so far as to assert that the ICC is “harassing African statesmen” and the African Union seeking to suspend the indictment. Sudan itself is alleging the indictment is undermining prospects for peace in Darfur. Meanwhile, France has expressed willingness to trade impunity for peace.
As the indictment flounders, and an initial hearing next week looms, Ocampo visited the General Assembly of the United Nations and lobbied for prosecution. Meanwhile, al-Bashir will travel to Accra and address the African, Caribbean and Pacific group, which has not seen fit to remove him as chairman despite the genocide.
Meanwhile, the third anniversary of the UN's groundbreaking Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty passed this month. When the report was issued, declaring the principle that the international community had a “Responsibility to Protect” victims of the worst atrocities, Darfur was the gravest humanitarian crisis on earth. Today, the conflict continues, and far too much of the global community rallies behind the Sudanese president.