La Lettre

Special Issue - The new letter of the FIDH
Number 2- January February 1999

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Information accountability Action

CARTE BLANCHE Carte Blanche for Njawé, Editor. For a Better Future FOCUS ON China. Inconsistency in China Delayed Repression: Fang Jue - an example of a Reformer Tunisia. Freedom for Khemais Ksila - and freedom for all Tunisians THE FIDH IN ACTION Burundi. Civil society needs greater support UN. A new programme to strengthen the international mechanisms for Human Rights Defenders WOMEN’S RIGHTS Afghanistan Afghan Women under Taliban repression HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS Human Rights Defenders’ Summit: Honouring the Defenders The Observatory: Urgent action PRESERVE UNIVERSALITY Asia. The failure of asian values The Arab world. The challenge for peace

NGOs and the Duty of Judicial Intervention July 1993: Bosniak refugee victims in France bring a case based on the crimes committed during the fighting in former Yugoslavia. 1995 A Rwandan victim, also a refugee in France, brings a case against a Rwandan clergyman on the ground of his alleged involvement in the genocide of April 1994. February 1993-November 1994: after the adoption of two Security Council resolutions, two ad hoc tribunals are set up, one to try crimes committed in former Yugoslavia, and the other to try cases of genocide perpetrated in Rwanda. July 1998: The Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court is adopted in Rome. October 1998: a case is brought by Chilean victims who are refugees in France, based on crimes committed in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship. On each of these occasions, the FIDH was there to support, and where possible to become a party to the proceedings. It is part of our mandate to bring appropriate proceedings whenever human rights or human rights defenders are challenged. But in the cases listed above, the action of the FIDH comes within a new context, that of legal action: States must seek out and try or extradite persons allegedly guilty of serious violations of international humanitarian law ; if they fail to carry out this obligation, when crimes are committed of such gravity that they shake the conscience of all humanity, human rights NGOs must bring legal proceedings themselves. The same applies when the international community, which should be setting up judicial institutions with universal jurisdiction to try these same accused, slows down the work on the Statute of the Court. In both situations, the FIDH acts not only by using all means to encourage reconciliation of peoples by fighting against impunity for those who violate their fundamental rights; but also by fighting against the impunity from which the Pinochets of the world could benefit. When States do not fulfil their obligations by taking adequate steps, NGOs have a duty to remedy this inexcusable inaction. Jean-Pierre Getti Member of the Executive Bureau of the FIDH

 

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