Omar Khadr: Warrior or Criminal?

NPR reported this week on Canada's response to the release on YouTube of this excerpt from an interrogation at Guantanamo Bay.



The prisoner is Omar Khadr, then a 16-year-old child soldier; the interrogators are Canadian intelligence officers. Whether this constitutes fair treatment of a child detainee or not, the bigger question in the Khadr case is put forth by Corey Flintoff during the NPR segment. This question has nothing to do with his treatment, nor with his age, but rather with his status:

"The story of Omar Khadr's capture is the story of a firefight in Afghanistan, an exchange of gun fire and after the exchange he allegedly throws a hand grenade... that sounds to me as close to the capture of a POW and as different from capturing somebody who's hatching a plot to bomb airplanes as I can imagine."

Indeed.

High Crimes

A great leap forward in international criminal law: Omar Bashir, President of Sudan, has become the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

At the Jurist, law professor Michael Kelly explains why this step constitutes one more helpful chink in the armor of sovereign immunity... but he also explains why Bashir is unlikely to be apprehended anytime soon.

In other words, a great leap forward for international law (as a set of rules) does not necessarily translate into a political or legal victory in practical terms. Quite the contrary, in some cases.

For this reason, the Wall Street Journal joins China in opposing the action - but for different reasons. China seeks to protect the sovereign right of governments to do as they damn well please. The WSJ bloggers recall how international judicial mechanisms served as a substitute, during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, for military action which could have stopped the bloodshed.

But a non-state actor (this time not a corporation but rather the human rights organization Avaaz) has an idea:

"Al Bashir knows that he will be caught only if other governments, especially Arab and African governments, agree to help the International Criminal Court. To make sure this happens, Avaaz is launching a large regional ad campaign, urging the leaders of these nations to save Darfur by helping the ICC."

Click here to donate.

Unsurprisingly, so far African nations are looking askance at the move. Will an ad campaign change their minds? Stay tuned.