The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has begun to evacuate a first group of more than 300 Sierra Leonean refugees from strife-torn Liberia, and if the ceasefire there holds the agency says it will broaden the repatriation effort.

The World Association of Newspapers is supporting a petition to the African Union calling for the abolishment of media laws and practices which restrict press freedom and create a hostile environment for journalists. The petition will be presented to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the Chair of the African Union, at a meeting of Heads of State in Maputo, from 5 to 12 July. "The right for journalists to practice without fear of legal persecution and personal injury is fundamental to any functioning democracy," said Timothy Balding, Director General of WAN.

The Zimbabwe crisis is not on the official list of African flashpoints under discussion at next week's African Union heads of state summit in Maputo. Dr Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said the leaders were expected to "completely avoid" the subject during the summit, which kicks off next Thursday.

World Bank projects costing hundreds of millions of pounds and aimed at cutting malnutrition among children in developing countries have completely failed to make any difference, according to a new report. Save the Children UK claims that the bank has not only continued with costly but failing projects in Bangladesh and Uganda but it is planning to expand, with a scheme billed for Ethiopia.

On 1 July 2002, the Rome Statute entered into force thereby establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the mandatory 60 state ratifications was achieved and surpassed on 11 April 2002. Currently there are 139 signatories and 90 States Parties (ratifications) of the Rome Statute. The ICC is currently based in the Netherlands with 18 judges, a prosecutor and a registrar having been appointed.

As the first anniversary of the ICC was reached on 1 July 2003, already 200 cases have been referred to it. The ICC will be now able, in principle, to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. These crimes include crimes committed in both international and non-international armed conflict, of murder; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of populations; torture, sexual violence (such as rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, and enforced sterilization) and apartheid. It also includes persecution against any identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds. Fundamentally, the ICC is important because it will be able to investigate and bring to justice people who commit the most serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Such crimes have only increased in recent years, especially in Africa, as civilians more frequently become the target of conflict. Some aspects of the ICC are groundbreaking in terms of international law. They include recognition of sexual violence as a war crime (first recognized in the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), special services to victims and witnesses, and the ICC's independence from the UN Security Council.

The scale of conflicts in Africa has grown over the last two decades. The most disturbing aspect of conflict in Africa is the increasing use of extreme violence, especially over the last ten years.

Africa has a poor record of adjudication of criminal offences against populations. The reasons for this are complex, but include the presence of on-going conflict; the inability of victims to report such offences; the inability of civil society, media and peace, safety and security agencies and national institutions to monitor, investigate and report such offences to national nor international bodies; derogation of the separation of powers and the lack of independence of national courts; constraints in the establishment of ad hoc criminal tribunals and their inherent inability to react to early-warnings of such offences against populations and their lack of deterrent effect they have in light of their ad hoc nature; the absence, hitherto, of a permanent international tribunal that has jurisdiction over target countries to immediately investigate reports of such offences and to prosecute perpetrators whomever they are and to provide reparation to victims; and the lack of political will and/or capacity of governments to ratify and harmonise domestic legislation with that of international conventions that would extend the jurisdiction of these conventions to the target countries.

But while the coming into force of the ICC is a historical event, the ICC is far from being empowered to carry out its work in Africa. This is partly due to the low number of ratifications on the continent and the US's attempts to weaken the effectiveness of the ICC.

Thus far, only 22 African countries have ratified the ICC. By not ratifying and enacting implementing legislation, governments avoid the jurisdiction of the ICC extending to their states thereby avoiding prosecution by the ICC. Aggravating the low number of ratifications is the US's attempts to obstruct the work of the ICC.

One of the very last acts of the Clinton administration was to sign the Rome Treaty in late 1998. Instead of subsequently ratifying the Treaty, in May 2002, the Bush administration withdrew the US signature. Since then, the US has intensified its efforts to undermine the ICC. Also in 2002, the US enacted the American Service Members Protection Act (ASPA). The ASPA set 1 July 2003 as a deadline whereby ICC State Parties receiving US military assistance will lose financial packages unless there is a US Presidential waiver of this provision (like with the NATO allies), or if they sign bi-lateral agreements with the US agreeing not to hand over US nationals and army personnel on their territory to the ICC for prosecution of human rights crimes. The fact that this deadline coincides with the first anniversary of the coming into effect of the Rome Statute must be perceived as an ominous signal.

Many countries have not bowed to US pressure, including the EU and in Africa, South Africa. Of the 22 countries in Africa which have ratified the ICC, 8 have signed bi-lateral agreements with the US. In total, 49 countries have signed these agreements (13 from Africa; 12 from Asia; 6 from the Pacific and 5 from Europe).

Eric Hoffer once wrote, “It is when formidable power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable”. It seems apparent that the US fears that the ICC is an impediment to its expansion of power in the world. It does not want to be held accountable for its actions in sovereign states and it is this fear that drives the US into an ever growing and formidable campaign against the ICC. In its defence the US alleges that its soldiers stationed in foreign territories could be prosecuted before the ICC on trumped-up, politically motivated charges. This argument is fallacious and unfairly brings into question the independence and impartiality of the ICC's judges and the statutory checks and balances that would ensure that false charges motivated by political considerations would not be prosecuted.

If the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the ICC constitutes a necessary precondition for the prevention of impunity and further conflict on the continent, it is by no means sufficient. The next step in the process may turn out to be more arduous than that which led to the coming into force of the ICC. The ICC has the potential to bring stability to the region by acting as a deterrent to future violations as well as bringing perpetrators to justice. However, unless there is a critical mass of African states that ratify the Rome Statute, draft implementing legislation and aggressively resist signing bi-lateral agreements that will undermine the ICC, impunity will continue to be a feature of the region.

How then can this be achieved? Internationally, and to a much lesser extent, within Africa, there has been considerable momentum built by NGOs and other civil society organisations in support of the establishment of the ICC. That momentum is in danger of being dissipated by the understandable complacency that can follow victory in the establishment of the ICC and efforts by the US to undermine the ICC.

If African governments are to be persuaded to ratify the Rome Statute, to begin the process of introducing strong domestic implementing legislation and resisting attempts to undermine the ICC, then this will be achieved only if concerted efforts are made to increase public awareness, to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations to campaign within each country as well as to engage their own governments in a constructive dialogue. In addition, the media, parliamentarians, the judiciary, lawyers and law enforcement agencies need to be won over to the necessity for ratification and/or implementing legislation, to understand what their own contributions towards such a goal might be, and the implications for their own work in relation to cooperation with and support for a strong ICC. The momentum already created in support of the establishment of the ICC needs to be built upon if such campaigns are to succeed. The South African Coalition for an ICC (SACICC) and Fahamu (www.fahamu.org) are in the process of planning a strategy on these and individuals and organisations interested in collaborating on this project as well as networking and establishing national and regional networks on the ICC issue may send a message to [email]info@fahamu.org.za

* Anil Naidoo is Convenor of the South African Coalition for an ICC and Firoze Manji is Director of Fahamu
* Please send comments for publication in the Letters and Comments section of Pambazuka News to editor@pambazuka.org
* More ICC stories in Pambazuka News:
- ICC MARKS FIRST BIRTHDAY
- WHITE HOUSE HOBBLES INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, WORLD SECURITY
- US SLAPS MILITARY AID EMBARGO ON SA

DO YOU SUPPORT PRESS FREEDOM AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?
http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freeafricanmedia/
Do you support Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression? Would you be happy to sign a petition aimed at the African Union & its member states calling for the release of all incarcerated African Journalists & for the repeal of Anti-media and Anti-free expression legislation? If Yes, click on the link to sign the petition. If you would like to do more, please make this message part of your signature and/or forward it to like-minded people.
* See the Media section of Pambazuka News for statements in support of the petition and a list of organisations and individual statements of those who have already signed up.
* Visit

An investment agreement in the World Trade Organisation, such as is being promoted by the major powers of WTO, is likely to pose worse problems for the social and economic development of African and other developing countries than anything encountered by these countries as a result of the debt crisis. Foreign private financial flows to these countries generate far larger outflow of resources than those associated with foreign loans, and so can cause overall financial instability as well as undermine domestic resource mobilisation for productive activity. That is, unless such flows are managed through careful regulation. However, the very policy instruments necessary for such management are precisely those which a WTO agreement on investment aims to take away from African and other developing country governments who need it most, when they need it most. These observations were contained in a paper presented by David Woodward, economist and consultant, at an African civil society seminar on investment in Accra in May, organised jointly by Oxfam International and Third World Network-Africa.

The UN Security Council's current president has said publicly for the first time that exile for Liberia's President Charles Taylor could be a means to end the civil war in his country. President Taylor faces an indictment for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone, where he backed rebels in the war that ended in 2001.

Kenya's former President Daniel arap Moi has called on the government of his successor, Mwai Kibaki, to stop a "witch-hunt" against him. Earlier this month, the government ordered anti-corruption police to question Mr Moi in connection with the collapse of Kenya's Euro Bank, although he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau, which have already been delayed three times this year, are to take place on 12 October, President Kumba Yala announced on Monday.

The chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), President John Kufuor of Ghana, has urged the United Nations to consider setting aside the indictment of Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes in order to facilitate a negotiated settlement to Liberia's civil war. "I am not demeaning the role of the UN tribunal, although the indictment almost torpedoed the mediation process," Kufuor told a Security Council mission in the capital, Accra, on Monday.

Bush comes to Africa to assist US imperialism. He wants to increase US multinational companies control of the resources of Africa. Bush and his war- mongering clique want to bully and bribe those who opposed him over the Iraq invasion. Bush says he wants to help Africa’s development. But he only wants to help big business and the elites of the world. He will try to tempt African rulers with special treatment if they fall in line. This treatment through trade deals will not benefit the people of Africa. President Mbeki said he was opposed to the war against Iraq. How can he now warmly receive the same person who carried out the war? Mbeki should refuse to meet Bush!

A leading pro-democracy activist who has been invited to address an international conference in London has been refused a visa by the UK High Commission in Harare. John Bomba has been a key student leader in Zimbabwe's volatile political scene for the last four years, and has drawn the attention of many of the most prominent figures in the country's turbulent opposition politics.

The Niger Delta Coalition Against Child Labour and Trafficking, a coalition of 30 NGOs and civil society organisations established in 2001 to combat child labour/trafficking and fight violence against children, young people and women has expressed concern that despite being the single largest contributor to the Nigerian budget, the Niger Delta region remains the largest supplier of children for labour and sexual exploitation in West and Central Africa. Yet the Nigerian Government is colluding with multinational oil companies in the region to protect profits at the expense of child survival, development, protection and participation rights, at the expense of development, at the expense of the environment, at the expense of democracy and human rights. Noting that combating child trafficking and slavery needs increased local, national and international attention and ongoing effective prevention, protection and rehabilitation measures, the coalition has recently launched a multi-disciplinary campaign to raise awareness on the ills of child trafficking, promote access to justice, mobilise public opinion and mobilise resources.

In the sixth edition of Promises Not Kept John Isbister updates his study of the dilemmas of international poverty and the Third World by bringing in a discussion of the effects of the war on terrorism and the “new American hegemony,” and surveys the prospects for justice in a world of globalization. Isbister’s comprehensively updated facts and figures, clear and forceful exposition of current concerns, and broad survey of the history of the linkages of the developed and developing worlds, will make this a popular update to a widely-used introductory text.

The book presents overwhelming evidence, from a range of disciplines, that local people do know a great deal about their environment. This knowledge must be taken into account in the planning and implementation of development to be both acceptable and effective. Forty-six contributions from anthropologists, sociologists, geographers and agricultural scientists (among others) in academia and international organisations provide both case study material and general conceptual papers. The interdisciplinary approach of this book makes it an essential tool for those studying indigenous knowledge systems.

L. Jan Slikkerveer, D. Michael Warren, David Brokensha

The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa will be holding a conference in partnership with Centro De Estudos De Democracia E Desenvolvimento (CEDE) on Consolidating Peace and Democracy in Mozambique through Election-related Conflict Management Initiatives, from the 22nd to 23rd July 2003 at the Hotel Polana in Maputo, Mozambique. The Southern African Region has been a theatre of violent conflicts that to a considerable degree undermined both democratic governance and economic progress. In Mozambique, protracted violent conflict was terminated in 1992 through a negotiated settlement. The peace process was then consolidated through the general election in 1994. The democratic process was further consolidated with the holding of the local elections in 1998 and the second round of general elections in 1999. But in all these elections the opposition (RENAMO) refused to accept the results of the elections claiming electoral fraud. It is clear that if solutions are not found to problems that the electoral process faces in Mozambique, sooner or later, peace and stability could be affected.

This is a five-day, residential programme which provides an introduction to some of the key theories, frameworks and practices which form the foundation of organisation development (OD). The programme draws on nine years of Olive's (www.oliveodt.co.za) experience of OD practice and will be of value to: Leaders of civil society organisations who seek a deeper understanding of the organisations of which they are the stewards; Leaders who want to enhance their effectiveness in supporting the development of their organisations; Consultants or other development workers who want to explore developing their capacity to work in the field of OD.

The pilot session of a new online course on Knowledge Networking for Development will run for seven weeks, starting July 14th and ending August 31st. This pilot session of the course is meant to provide a forum for discussions rather than a formal training event. There is no tuition fee for this pilot session and it is open to everyone.

The International Law Institute (ILI) Uganda and African Centre for Legal Excellence invites you to attend or nominate participants from your organisation to attend a Seminar: Applying Human Rights To Governance and Development, July 28- August 8, 2003. Upon completion of the course an internationally acclaimed certificate will be awarded to the participants. ILI Uganda is a capacity building institution providing training to African professionals in finance, management, law and governance.

Allegations of corruption within the Kenya National AIDS Control Council (NACC) will not affect grants due to be given to the Kenyan government by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. "The Global Fund is not involved at all in any kind of discussion with regard to this matter," Dr Elhadj Sy, Africa Director for the fund, told IRIN last Friday. "We have not issued any threats or any statement on this."