By Michael Travis
News Editor
Pierre-Richard Prosper, President George W. Bush’s ambassador-at-large for war crime issues and former Pepperdine President Dr. David Davenport spoke Wednesday at the School of Public Policy and School of Law’s annual Charles and Rosemary Licata Lecturer Series.
More than 200 students, faculty and staff crowded into a classroom to hear this year’s subject, “The International Court: A New Diplomacy?”
Ambassador Prosper discussed the issues that have faced the international community and the United States in the creation of a permanent international court that would hold jurisdiction over war crimes.
He said that the United States, while initially in support of the creation of such an entity, no longer believes that it will work.
“The United States is not taking part in the international court,” Prosper said. “The court’s processes are fundamentally flawed.”
In the past, Prosper said, war crimes have been dealt with through the United Nations Security Council, which decides the who, what, where, when, why and how of war crimes and how to prosecute them.
The council is composed of five permanent members, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France. Ten other countries are also a part of the council, serving on a two-year rotating membership basis.
According to Prosper, the international tribunals that have been set up using this process in the past have been successful, like the ones used in Rwanda and the former country of Yugoslavia.
The key process to these procedures, Prosper said, is the discourse and discussion that takes place among the countries that aid in administering justice, and this is an important element that the outline of the international court lacks.
“There are no safeguards to prevent (the international court) from becoming a political tool, and it could be used to attack U.S. interests in the world community,” Prosper said. “This is because a single prosecutor would be totally in charge of deciding who would be tried and when, with only two judges having to agree to the charges.”
Prosper also said that the United States has conducted extensive diplomatic negotiations concerning this issue with other countries involved in the creation of the international court, but had thus far yielded no acceptable results.
Prosper said that the rest of the world community has gone forward with plans to create the international body without the consent of the United States.
According to the plans for the International Criminal Court, officials and military staff from the United States and other non-participating countries would fall under the jurisdiction of the court.
“The court will not and should not exercise jurisdiction over the United States,” Prosper said.
Some students that attended the meeting were surprised at Prosper’s message, which seemed in contrast to the one he delivered at Convocation.
Freshman Bruce Hedrick said that the ambassador did a virtual 180-degree turn in the messages he delivered at convocation and the School of Public Policy lecture.
“I asked the Ambassador a two-part question,” Hedrick said. “First, I expressed my worry about why his message in Convo was like a rally cry in support of the International Court, but then at (the School of Law) lecture expressed that we are not going to be involving ourselves within its jurisdiction — an act that looks a bit like hypocrisy to me.”
According to Hedrick, other students shared in his confusion.
Davenport, Pepperdine University president from 1985 – 2000, followed Prosper with a speech concerning the creation of international policies by small to medium sized nations without the participation of larger and more powerful countries like the United States.
Davenport said that this “New Diplomacy” was a growing trend among the world community, and with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the Red Cross, were creating policies that affected everyone who would agree to them.
Prosper, an alumnus of Pepperdine’s School of Law, was nominated for the ambassador-at-large for war crimes by Bush on May 16, 2001, confirmed by the Senate on July 11 and was officially sworn in on July 13, 2001. From 1996 to late 1998, he served as a war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he successfully prosecuted the first ever case of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Between 1994 and 1996, he was an assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, and helped prosecute international drug cartels.
Davenport is currently a research fellow for the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Before he served as Pepperdine’s president he was a professor at the School of Law, general counsel and executive vice president of the university.
He is also the director of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. and was director of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
October 24, 2002