Hunting Warlords: The Fight for Justice
After a six year legal battle, former Liberian president Charles Taylor became the first head of state to be convicted of war crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court at the Hague in the Netherlands.
Those who lived under his rule- suffering through acts of murder and slavery- celebrated the verdict. But critics of the ICC believe that the Taylor trial took too long and the system stands gridlocked.
To discuss the International Criminal Court, Christiane Amanpour sat down with the Director of Human Rights Watch International Justice Program, Richard Dicker.
Mr. Dicker agrees that the court moves too slowly but he believes that "accountability through criminal trials, even 10-15 years after the crimes occurred, is essential in creating the conditions for a durable peace."
To Mr. Dicker, the success of the ICC needs to be seen on multiple levels. The progress that's been made to hold heads of state accountable for war crimes would have been unfathomable even 20 years ago, but that progress has created an expectation of justice that hadn't existed before.
"When I see demonstrators in Syria wearing signs that read 'Assad to the Hague,' to me that is proof of the way expectations for justice, even if its delivery falls short, that expectation has advanced in a way that we would have never been able to imagine but 20 years ago."
