DATOS PERSONALES

Mi foto
* Escritor y periodista especializado en los aspectos políticos de la globalización. * Presidente del Consejo del World Federalist Movement. * Director de la Cátedra de Integración Regional Altiero Spinelli del Consorzio Universitario Italiano per l’Argentina. * Profesor de Teoría de la Globalización y Bloques regionales de la UCES y de Gobernabilidad Internacional de la Universidad de Belgrano. * Miembro fundador de Democracia Global - Movimiento por la Unión Sudamericana y el Parlamento Mundial. * Diputado de la Nación MC por la C.A. de Buenos Aires

sábado, 28 de julio de 2012


A diez años de la creación de la Corte Penal Internacional, les acerco este balance de luces y sombras, y con algunas propuestas para el futuro inmediato (en inglés, cortesía de The Federalist Debate). 
FAI

International Criminal Court 2.0

The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has constituted a great demonstration of the unsuspected possibilities opened by the collaboration between the organizations of the global civil society and some few progressive governments[1], as well as the highest step achieved by humankind towards universal justice. However, even with its 121 States Parties, its issued 20 warrants of arrest, its 15 cases and its seven ongoing investigations, ten years after its effective creation the ICC continues to show severe limitations in its aim to end impunity for crimes against humanity.
The most obvious of them derives from the article 13 of the Rome Statute that has established the Court, which states that only the citizens of the nations that had signed the Statute are subjected to the ICC jurisdiction. It is obvious that -if not provided- this concession to national sovereignties would have wrecked the entire project of the Court. As obvious as the fact that this capacity of national states to decide whether or not adhere to the rules of global justice has predictably led the most warlike and violent of them to not endorse the Treaty, keeping away from international law their political leaders and military officials.
The list of the nations that have not yet signed the Treaty (Rome Statute) expresses of the incompatibility between national sovereignties, on one hand, and universal justice, human rights and rule of law, on the other. It includes China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Russia and the United States, among others. Needless to say, these are exactly the countries that have been the protagonists of violations to human rights or the focus of recent international conflicts and civil wars.

As a predictable result of this concession to national sovereignty, the ICC prosecution has so far opened 16 cases in 7 countries: Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan (Darfur), the Central African Republic, Kenya, Libya and Côte d’Ivoire[2]; meaning seven African nations among seven. The some official source informs that the ICC procurator “is currently conducting preliminary examinations in a number of situations including Afghanistan, Georgia, Guinea, Colombia, Honduras, Korea and Nigeria”, meaning none a single first world Western country among all of them.
Of course, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights are more frequent in Africa than in any other continent, and less usual at the first world than within the third one. Yet, the ICC was created both to judge crimes against humanity and war crimes, such as those committed by the United States (and their allies, in some cases) by invading Iraq, jailing people under inhumane conditions and without any guarantee of a fair trial in Guantanamo and creating a vast international system of imprisonment and torture.
Meaningfully, an initiative in favor of the investigation of war crimes and international aggression committed by the U.S.A. in Iraq, which had been promoted to the Court by 2006, was dismissed because “The available information suggests that a small number of murders and inhumane treatment of people has occurred. However, the crimes committed by citizens of the states-members of the ICC in Iraq have now reached the gravity required to be judged" (ICC resolution, 10/17/06).
Nonetheless, latest news on the biased perspective adopted by the ICC was the UN Security Council composed by three permanent members –the United States, Russia and China- proposing and obtaining from the ICC the prosecution of Colonel Gaddafi[3], while all the three countries continue to avoid to sign the Rome Statute in order to keep the immunity of its own officials and public servants. Beside the undoubted criminality of Gaddafi´s acts, what can the people of the third-world could possibly think on the ICC when they saw the cruel Gaddafi’s assassination after he had been warranted to arrest by the ICC, with no further prosecution of its murderers? What can any just human being think about by observing that all the criminals against humanity seem to be African? What when first-world countries’ war crimes –such as starting war against Iraq based on false allegations of possession of mass-destruction weapons- are ignored or dismissed?

For those who want to preserve the ICC as a fair instrument for the establishment of international rule of law and global justice, it gets every day clearer that the current structure of the ICC conspires against these high objectives. A new structure –a 2.0 International Criminal Court- is urgently needed but, how could it be created when three of the five big powers that command the UN Security Council are against any limitation of their national sovereignties?
A first step in this direction, however, is simple to achieve: no matter if their own national states have signed or not the ICC Rome Statute, no matter if their states are part or not of the UN Security Council, crimes against humanity and war crimes must be prosecuted and their committers be judged guilty by the ICC. The fact that insofar they cannot be punished should not be an obstacle for their moral and symbolic impeachment. You think, for instance, on the consequences of an ICC verdict of culpability against those who had decided the invasion of Iraq, or the use of Guantanamo as a prison, or the building of an international network of imprisonment and torture -etc- in terms of their internal political credibility and you will verify that the ICC is not that powerless as some pretend it to be.

To be short: if the ICC prosecution to Gadaffi and Omar al-Bashir[4] were feasible –as they effectively were- there are no good reasons in favor of keeping first-world public functionaries, commanders and troops out from the court if they are responsible of war crimes. The advantages for the credibility of the Court would be evident: the biased conviction of only Africans and the partisan judging of third-world tyrants would be publically assigned to the responsible ones: national states and their pretension that national sovereignty is over human rights. The alternative to such a measure is continuing to devaluate the ICC´s prestige, its degradation to another “tribunal of the winners” and the erosion of basic concepts such as human rights, international rule of law and global justice.

As well as these measures seem to be essential and urgent to prevent that the ICC´s current first-worldist bias lead to its failure, the ICC shift from its 1.0 to its 2.0 stage constitutes the most valuable objective for the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), which already includes 2.500 civil society organizations from 150 different countries devoted “to ensure that the Court is fair, effective and independent” and “make justice both visible and universal”[5].

But let’s see further on the political structure of this techno-economically globalised world. In all democratic countries, the creation of an equal justice for all was only possible when the development of courts and tribunals was complemented by the creation of representative and democratic political systems. There is no truly justice-for-all where there is no democracy, meaning both countries and the whole world. The ICC will be always blamed and in high danger of being disaccredited and discarded until the creation of representative forms of democracy at the global level.
The history of Democracy is clear: at the national level, as well as at the regional one, the creation of courts was immediately followed by their failure or by the creation of parliaments. The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly such as an embryo of a World Parliament and the future replacement of the current Assembly of State Parties as the ICC’s governing body are, hence, the following necessary step (a 3.0 ICC) towards a universal egalitarian global justice.

Fernando A. Iglesias
Democracia Global- Argentina vicepresident
Cattedra Altiero Spinelli director
World Federalist Movement council chairman

[1] The ICC was established after a successful campaign developed by the global coalition of NGOs: the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, which is the largest global association focused on the fight for global justice. Coordinated since 1995 by Bill Pace, executive secretary of the World Federalist Movement, is made to 2,500 NGOs from 150 countries.

[2]According to the same ICC.  See http://www.icc-cpi.int
[3] “On 26 February 2011, the UN Security Council decided unanimously to refer the situation in Libya since 15 February 2011 to the ICC Prosecutor. On 3 March 2011, the ICC Prosecutor announced his decision to open an investigation, which was assigned by the Presidency to Pre-Trial Chamber I. On 27 June 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued three warrants of arrest respectively for Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah Al-Senussi for crimes against humanity allegedly committed across Libya from 15 until at least 28 February 2011, through the State apparatus and Security Forces. On 22 November 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber I formally terminated the case against Muammar Gaddafi due to his death” (from the ICC webpage).

[4] Despite Sudan is not an ICC state-member, the previous ICC prosecutor, Dr. Luis Moreno Ocampo, asked the ICC judges a warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, alleging him to be guilty of war crimes and genocide in Darfur (Sudan).

viernes, 13 de julio de 2012



Acaba de terminar en la Universidad de Winnipeg, Canadá, el XXVI Congreso del Movimiento Federalista Mundial http://www.wfm-igp.org/site/wfm-home   que contó con la participación de 45 delegados de organizaciones federalistas de Norteamérica, Sudamérica, Asia y Europa. 
Las grandes crisis globales en el plano ecológico, financiero y de seguridad estuvieron en el centro del debate, así como las movilizaciones que en todo el mundo expresan su descontento con el actual orden político internacional y, aunque de manera confusa y embrionaria, reclaman un mundo más pacífico y unido, justo y democrático.

Tres acontecimientos confirman el crecimiento de Democracia Global-Argentina - Movimiento por el parlamento mundial y la la unidad sudamericana http://www.democraciaglobal.org.ar/ :

1) El reconocimiento de Democracia Global como miembro permanente del Movimiento Federalista Mundial , con derecho a dos delegados en el Consejo.

2) La aprobación de una moción de apoyo al Manifiesto por una Democracia Global http://globaldemocracymanifesto.wordpress.com/espanol/  así como la decisión de varias de las organizaciones asociadas al MFM de desarrollar actividades de difusión y debate.

3) Mi elección, por unanimidad, a presidente del Consejo y miembro permamente del Comité Ejecutivo.

Espero que tengan el tiempo de curiosear en los links que he posteado, y que compartan conmigo la idea de que en el siglo XXI las tareas de la política (proteger el medio ambiente mundial, regular los mercados financieros globales, detener la proliferación nuclear, disminuir las desigualdades internacionales, promover un escenario mundial regido por la ley, los derechos humanos y el estado de derecho) serán sobre todo globales, o no serán nada.  



miércoles, 4 de julio de 2012

Comparto con ustedes el excelente artículo de FERNANDO SAVATER en EL PAÍS, sobre los desafíos actuales de la democracia,  con explícita mención del MANIFIESTO POR UNA DEMOCRACIA GLOBAL, del cual es firmante.


Reactivar la democracia

Es evidente que la crisis económica y sus consecuencias demoledoras en el Estado de bienestar europeo, la indignación contra los mercados financieros asilvestrados, el levantamiento popular contra las satrapías del norte de África, las alteraciones climáticas que las cumbres internacionales no logran evitar, etcétera… han conmocionado las bases rutinarias de las democracia establecidas. Cada vez resulta más claro para más gente que el sistema no puede funcionar poniendo el piloto automático o dejando que los profesionales de la política sigan cooptando entre ellos apaños cada vez más ineficaces. Más allá de demostraciones de descontento comprensibles, pero que a veces favorecen el regreso de opciones totalitarias (tanto la extrema derecha como la extrema izquierda están permanentemente indignadas contra la democracia y se aprovechan de la confusión) parece urgente no quizá refundar sino al menos reactivar la democracia. Pero ¿cómo?

Abundan las propuestas de diferente signo, que a veces —siguiendo la moda del celebérrimo panfleto de Hessel— adoptan en su título el modo imperativo. No será la primera vez que la rebelión comience obedeciendo la orden de rebelarse… Paolo Flores d’Arcais es uno de los intelectuales italianos que más han luchado por la recuperación de una conciencia cívica en su país, secuestrada a medias entre Berlusconi y el papado. Director de la revista Micromega, de referencia para todos los demócratas europeos con espíritu libertario, y seguidor ilustrado de Hannah Arendt, acaba de publicar un breve libro —Democrazia! (editorial Add, Turín)— afortunadamente más y mejor argumentado que el ¡Indignaos! de Hessel, aunque responde a una urgencia semejante.
En su apretado prontuario, Flores d’Arcais repasa los fundamentos de la democracia moderna, pero también los obstáculos actuales que la bloquean o pervierten. Para él, la ciudadanía no es un derecho adquirido en el que reposar sino una permanente exigencia de militancia... lo cual contraviene nuestros tiempos abúlicos, en los que muchos despotrican pero pocos están dispuestos a sacrificar algo de su comodidad en informarse a fondo y reunirse con otros para reivindicar los cambios necesarios. Sin embargo, piensa Flores d’Arcais, sólo hay democracia donde se lucha por la democracia. Un combate que pasa por enfrentarse a toda ilegalidad, privada o institucional, por exigir respeto a la verdad de los hechos y laicismo que separe la esfera pública de cualquier dogma religioso, defender la lógica racional y la ilustración en todos los planos, suprimir la influencia corruptora del dinero en el horizonte político y propiciar la redistribución constante de la riqueza a través de un Estado que no renuncie a procurar el bienestar de la mayoría, así como una fiscalidad vigilante y progresivamente progresiva, etcétera... En cuanto al plano moral de la democracia, el resumen de su ética es la coherencia entre lo que conocemos, lo que deseamos y la forma en que nos comportamos socialmente. ¿Un repertorio de sueños e ilusiones? Quizá lo ilusorio sea imaginar que seguiremos en democracia si renunciamos a ellos.

Ese reactivamiento democrático tendrá que ser no sólo local, sino mundial. Es lo que pide el Manifiesto por una democracia global (ver http://globaldemocracymanifesto.wordpress.com/ ) dirigido a todos aquellos que quieran ser ciudadanos del mundo y no meramente sus habitantes. Ante la globalización de las finanzas, las cadenas productivas y los medios de comunicación, así como el poder planetario de las tecnologías destructivas, es imprescindible la globalización de las instituciones democráticas de regulación y control. Esta demanda, que encierra una voz de alarma, la han firmado intelectuales de todo el mundo como Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Richard Sennett, Noam Chomsky, Susan George, Giacomo Marramao, Mary Kaldor, Juan José Sebreli, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Vandana Shiva, Roberto Saviano, etcétera... y va a ser presentada en capitales de todos los continentes a lo largo de este año y del próximo. Como tantas otras iniciativas, ésta puede quedarse en un brindis declamatorio: depende de todos nosotros. Porque nada se hará si creemos que nada puede hacerse.

FERNANDO SAVATER