The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns as an act that demonstrates the failure of the international community to deal with dictators within the framework of law, while not deviating from international norms and standards.
The fact that the United States of America and the United Kingdom supported this act is a sad reflection on the disregard of the very norms and standards on which the post-Second World War foundations of human rights are based.
That the dictator should be punished is a premise that is now well established. However, the manner in which dictators are punished is the crux of the matter. In the process of punishing dictators if the very process of democratization and humanization is undermined, the actual results of such punishments do not help to establish higher norms and standards. Barbarity being met with barbarity does not help civilization to progress. An illegal war under international law, undermining the fundamental premise on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, makes this situation even worse. Had the United States ratified the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and if Saddam Hussein was prosecuted and punished by such a process Iraq and all other countries would have learned the lessons of the new international law.
As a new year begins, those who are committed to upholding the fundamental premises of human rights philosophy and law must reflect on the challenges posed by new tendencies that oppose the most basic aspects of human rights.
