Wanted: President Omar al-Bashir

On 4 March 2009 an arrest warrant was issued for the serving president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, on five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. It is a world first. The court was set-up in the face of US hostility; the arrest warrant was issued despite UK and French reservations, and commentators have been divided in their responses.

Those opposed to the arrest warrant argue that since it cannot be served in Khartoum, and likely not anywhere that the president is likely to go, it is just posturing; worse, this posturing threatens a fragile arrangement that protects the civilian population of Darfur and puts at risk the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the North-South war. A high price, they say, for the satisfaction of making Bashir a wanted man. Might will not bend to right, and we must accommodate accordingly.

There is another view, that argues that not only is the moral imperative compelling in this case, but the political ramifications of it are just as likely to be positive as negative for the Sudan, and most certainly a constraint on future leaders contemplating making war on their citizens.

The Khartoum regime is implacably opposed to the warrant. Why? Because it damages Sudan’s international standing, undermines its attempt to win acceptance in Washington, and is a blow to its aspiration to be a regional leader — there can, surely, be no prospect of Khartoum chairing the AU while there is an arrest warrant out for its president.

Bashir’s own position is weakened, not strengthened by the warrant. Whatever his version of events, he speaks as a wanted man, which diminishes his authority. The National Congress Party now has a serious liability in President Bashir, as well as a scapegoat, should it want one, for Darfur. Whether he is removed or not, his position is now less secure than it was.

One of the appalling sacrifices made by the Westphalian system, that has, since the end of the Thirty Years War, underpinned the Western and more recently the global system of state-to-state relations, has been the over emphasis on national sovereignty and the refusal to hold ‘princes’ to account, with only occasional derogations — Nuremberg and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia being the most obvious. The establishment of the International Criminal Court and the UN’s Responsibility to Protect is a major rebalancing of international law.

There is one point that does demand attention. What of the implications for the vulnerable of Darfur, and the North-South peace agreement should Bashir decide to raise the stakes by attacking his own people again, or by undermining the CPA?

This will be a real test of the international community, and one that it is obliged to pass. The State Department’s approach to Sudan is likely to be tougher than was the Republicans’. The UK should follow suit. International guarantees exist for the CPA — we must ensure that means something -— and a new game plan needs to be articulated for Darfur. It is Bashir and his regime that should feel the consequences of this, not his victims. The warrant has been issued.

The arrest warrant for President Bashir can be found at http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc639078.pdf