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As a German citizen, I am bound to write a few words about the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union as well as about what this Presidency actually entails. On January 1, 2007, Germany has taken over the Presidency from Finland. Germany will hold the Presidency for six months. In July, Portugal will assume the Presidency for the next six months, followed by Slovenia ...
The Council of the European Union is part of the legislature in the European Union. It meets in different formations [Council website], depending on the issues discussed, with each member state delegating a minister responsible for the specific area (i.e. if environmental issues are to be discussed, member states will send their ministers who are responsible for environmental affairs).
The member state holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union [overview, German Presidency website] acts as a chairman of the different Council configurations as well as of the various preparatory committees, working groups etc. In addition, the President of the Council of the European Union (i.e. the foreign minister of the member state holding the Presidency) prepares the agenda for the Council, signs legal acts, and represents the Council with regards to foreign affairs.
The slogan of the German Presidency is "Europe - succeeding together". Germany has developed an extensive program [text, pdf] and will organize two summits: The first one will take place the coming week and will deal with questions of the European Union's economic and social future. The second summit will be held in June and will address the future of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution of Europe.
While the frequent change of Presidencies of the Council of the European Union shall guarantee the best representation of interests of the respective member states, it is often too short to bring about major changes or reforms and it is up to the succeeding state to decide whether it will continue these efforts or set its own priorities...
In view of this problem, Germany, Portugal, and Slovenia have come together and developed a 18-month program [text, pdf] covering their three successive Presidencies. Maybe this program represents the necessary step to bring about the looked-for reform to make the European Union more apt to deal with the ever growing number of member states. It remains to be seen what future will bring...
Yesterday, I mentioned the extraordinary rendition case brought in a US court by the German citizen Khaled El-Masri. Today, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of this case. Like the district court, the court of appeals recognized the state secrets privilege as providing sufficient grounds for a dismissal of the case. According to the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Reynolds (1953), the state secrets privilege allows the United States to prevent disclosure of information in a judicial proceeding if "there is reasonable danger" that such a disclosure "will expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged." The court of appeals finds that despite the fact that the existence of CIA flights has been publicly acknowledged by the United States, a proper proceeding would have required the (further) release of state secrets which could jeopardize national security.
Well, US courts dismiss extraordinary rendition cases, foreign courts that accept to hear such cases will not get hold of the suspects ... sooner or later the whole matter will fizzle out.
Yesterday, the US Department of State, announced that the United States were not inclined to follow any request from Italy to extradite CIA agents [press briefing]. With this statements the State Department reacts to the indictment of 26 US (and 5 Italian) intelligence agents by an Italian judge earlier this month for their alleged participation in the 2003 abduction and extraordinary rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian cleric and alleged terror suspect. The trial is set to begin in Italy on June 8, 2007. If the US continues to refuse to extradite the agents, the trial may still take place in absentia. The impact of such a trial, however, is questionable. What should happen if those agents are found guilty by an Italian judge?
In a similar case, involving a German citizen who was allegedly abducted by the CIA and held in a secret prison in Afghanistan, the CIA acknowledged having been authorized by presidential order to detain and interrogate terror suspects overseas. Yet, will the US president be held accountable? And the European state officials who, according to a report by the European parliament [info], "have been relinquishing control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on some occasions, were being used for illegal transportation of detainees"?
What remains is a deflating insight: hypocrisy does not halt before human rights. Western democracies may be publicly endorsing civil values and human rights, but offstage they still resort to torture. Individual rights, then, are left out dry.
On Tuesday, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the first suspects in the case involving the situation in Darfur. The Prosecution claims [ICC-OTP press release] to have found reasonable grounds to believe that Ali Kushayb, leader of the pro-government janjaweed militia, and Ahmad Harun, former Sudanese interior minister, have jointly committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. By accusing senior figures of Sudan of international crimes, the Prosecution follows its policy to focus investigation and prosecution efforts on the big fish.
Tuesday's announcement came two years after the UN Security Council had referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan, to the prosecutor of the ICC [Security Council press release]. Besides Darfur, the following three situations have been referred to the prosecutor of the ICC: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic.
A Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC now has to review the evidence submitted by the Prosecution. If the judges find that there is indeed reasonable grounds to believe that Kushayb and Harun committed the alleged crimes, they have to decide how to further proceed, specifically, how to ensure Kushayb's and Harun's appearance in court. This raises the important question of execution of arrest warrants issued by the ICC. The ICC lacks its own enforcement mechanism and therefore has to rely on state cooperation. Hence, what if a state is either unable or even unwilling to execute an arrest warrant issued by the ICC?
The chief prosecutor of the ICC has recently called on academics and practitioners to publish on the topic of international criminal prosecution [Jurist Forum].
