In the past decade the rule of law has achieved talismanic status as the answer to many of the international community’s toughest problems. It’s the foundation for economic development, the antidote to terrorism, the linchpin of democratic legitimacy. If Barack Obama and Iranian President Ahmadinejad can agree on nothing else, they both praise the rule of law. Even President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, who infamously threatened in September 2009 to “kill” human rights workers who criticized his government, nonetheless saw fit in a speech weeks later to hail “the rule of law” as a means of addressing “the complexities of today’s world.”

But while it has come to occupy central stage in political debates, there is little consensus on what the rule of law means in practice, or how to realize it on the ground.

All of which makes it timely that, when heads of state gather in New York at this September’s UN General Assembly, the “rule of law at the national and international levels” will be the topic of discussion.

The benign title masks a simmering conflict. Many developing countries want more “international” law to restrain the U.S.and other veto-wielding Permanent-5 powers on the UN Security Council, a body sorely in need of reform. By contrast, western donor governments are keen to focus on “national” rule of law needs in conflict regions of Africa and the Middle East.

Given universal enthusiasm for a concept whose meaning is so contested, is there any way to bridge the gap?

Rather than simply repeat the empty platitudes of the past, leaders must now offer concrete commitments.

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has this month called on states to set clear goals promoting rule of law with indicators to measure progress over time, establish a regular forum for consultation among states and civil society to ensure that September’s discussion is not a one-off event, and make specific pledges to improve the rule of law in ways relevant to national context.

Useful steps forward are politically possible. And the need for more rule of law is so vast and varied that no state should be shy about acknowledging it can do better. To the contrary, pledging to take action in even one sector of an admittedly broad field would affirm the seriousness with which states take their responsibilities to the rule of law overall.

On the international level, states could commit to ratify certain treaties (the U.S. has yet to join the Convention on Discrimination against Women), respect the decisions of international tribunals (Brazil could halt its campaign of protest against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights), or recognize as compulsory the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice to resolve inter-state spats (Russia has yet to do so).

Domestically, states might pledge to permit anyone under police questioning access to a lawyer (as the European Court of Human Rights has urged Turkey to do), limit pre-trial detention to the maximum period of imprisonment in the event of conviction (some detainees in India reportedly languish for far longer), or develop an independent mechanism to investigate allegations of custodial torture (in countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan).

Donor states in particular could use the occasion to establish a global fund for justice. By pooling resources from both private and governmental donors, and developing a financial reservoir to be tapped over time, the fund would curb the inefficiency and politicization of the current aid system.

Prudent investments in justice don’t have to be expensive. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mobile courts have fairly tried and convicted army soldiers for mass rape in far less time and at a fraction of the cost of international tribunals. In Nigeria, recent law graduates placed in police stations at modest expense have freed hundreds of persons who faced unnecessary months, if not years, in jail. In Sierra Leone, members of rural communities trained as paralegals for far less than the price of a lawyer have resolved land disputes and won community access to roads, electricity and environmental clean-up. In short, while more funding for justice is required over time, more intelligent donor assistance would help in the present climate of budgetary restraint.

Rule of law’s dualism—rooted in both law and politics, grand vision and everyday reality—is its attraction and its challenge. Its broken promise is visible everywhere—from the Dominican-born stateless child denied an education, to the Chinese blogger whose website is silenced, to the victim of racial profiling on the streets of New York. But its aspiration—that the law should apply equally to all—is what lends an overused phrase its compelling force. From now to September, diplomats must give it substance.

Unfortunately, the list of invitations appears to be so “high level” that virtually the only persons in attendance will be representing governments. Though a few NGOs, most based in London, have been invited, the vast majority of NGOs and other civil society representatives throughout Europe who engage with the Court, sustain it, and depend on it for the defense of human rights have not. Also, the different drafts of the Declaration to be adopted in Brighton have not been officially shared with civil society organizations. It has been therefore more difficult to meaningfully contribute to the negotiations.

Based on publicly available information, there will be no civil society presence at Brighton from Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, or any of the other countries that are principally responsible for the Court’s surging caseload. A discussion about the future of the most important human rights tribunal in the world will thus be confined primarily to government officials. Is there no room for more civil society voices?

While "justice" is a series of aspirations for a better world, and "human rights" consists of internationally agreed and/or legally binding restraints on state power, "the rule of law" falls somewhere in between.

Lawyers and non-lawyers spend a lot of time discussing what the rule of law is. The definition the UN employs is quite a mouthful:

The term rule of law refers to a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.

Perhaps it is easier to see what the rule of law is not.

In recent weeks, we've seen three striking examples that illustrate the politicization of law.

In Spain, on January 17, Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has advanced the frontiers of justice abroad by prosecuting war criminals—like former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and members of the former military junta in Argentina—went on trial for doing the same at home. Among other things, Garzon is accused of abusing his power in opening a case into the deaths of more than 100,000 people under the Franco regime. One need not be an expert in Spanish law to fear that a judge is being punished for displaying in Spain the very independence which won him praise elsewhere.

The same week, a court in Istanbul acquitted most of 19 defendants accused of involvement in the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor who had provoked outrage in Turkey by labeling as “genocide” the 1915 massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. Before his death, Dink had been repeatedly prosecuted for expressing his opinion on matters deemed controversial. In 2005, he was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for "denigrating Turkishness" in writing about the identity of Turkish citizens of Armenian origin.  In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights held that the Turkish authorities had failed to act on information that could have prevented Dink's murder and to investigate the role of state officials in his death. Although the latest verdicts may be reviewed on appeal, the failure to secure justice for Dink’s killers sends a disturbing message about Turkey’s commitment to equal protection of the law for government supporters and dissidents alike.

Finally, just this week, the United States Department of Justice charged John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, with disclosing classified information to journalists about the apprehension, interrogation and torture in 2002 of a suspected member of Al-Qaeda. This is the sixth criminal prosecution—more than all previous presidents since World War II—brought under President Obama against current or former government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. Rights advocates have expressed concern that this systematic effort to punish whistleblowers may silence others who have information about abuses, including those committed during the Bush Administration’s war on terror. Some suggest that is precisely the point—to hinder the search for criminal accountability.

Each of these examples highlights the danger, even in democracies with well-developed institutions, that political motivations may infect the judicial process in a manner which erodes impartiality and even-handedness. While misappropriation of the criminal law may seem to offer short-term gains to political actors, in the long run it undermines the legitimacy of government.

Taken together, these cases make clear, by its glaring absence, that one core component of the rule of law is the separation of law and politics. To give meaning to that principle, states might commit at the UN’s rule of law summit in September to the following:

First, effectively and thoroughly investigate all crimes, including—and indeed in particular—where there is reason to suspect the involvement of state officials.

Second, refrain from using the criminal process to punish anyone for political expression, or to infringe upon the principle of judicial independence.  Relatedly, do not prosecute judges for carrying out well founded investigations of politically sensitive crimes.

Third, provide effective legal protection for government whistleblowers who release information of public interest to the media or the public.

The mere restating of such common sense principles, in a public forum attended by senior dignitaries from around the world, would underscore their importance. Better yet, states might even agree to a process whereby, over the next several years, they would  articulate specific “stretch” commitments for each, with progress transparently monitored. That might make the High Level Segment this September worth following.

This is the second in an occasional series by the author looking at the issues facing this year's United Nations meeting on the rule of law.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the premier human-rights tribunal in the world, is under siege, but not from enemies. A victim of its own success, the court is collapsing under the weight of more than 160,000 pending applications, with 50,000 new ones lodged every year.

The moment for action may be at hand: this month, the UK assumed for six months the chair of the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe's highest decision-making body, pledging to secure a package of reforms.

The UK has yet to put forward firm proposals, but the coalition government has indicated it is considering, among others, steps to give the court more control over its overwhelming docket.

This UK government is not the most likely champion of the ECHR: David Cameron, the prime minister, has made it clear he thinks the ECHR has overreached itself, most famously in a 2005 ruling against a blanket British ban on prisoners' voting, which the UK has yet to implement.

But what is more important than the specifics presented by the UK is the broader impetus behind the proposals, which would in any case require the approval of all 47 member states. This push to reduce the court's caseload, and other problems, may determine whether the Strasbourg court lives or dies.

Founded in 1950, out of the ashes of the war, the court was a potent symbol of Europe's renewed commitment to the rule of law. Over time, it has become an extraordinary safeguard of individual liberty.

The court has issued numerous landmark judgments establishing principles not just of European, but of international, significance. The court held that some of the techniques by the British in Northern Ireland in the 1970s constituted torture. And in cases from Russia, Turkey, and points in between, it has breathed life into the central promises of a civilized society, including the right to a fair trial and access to a lawyer.

The court has pioneered a model of international justice that today sets the standard for institutions in Africa, the Americas and The Hague. And now, because of the Lisbon treaty, the EU itself will soon be subject to Strasbourg's edicts, through its accession to the European Convention on Human Rights.

But the court is being asked to do too much. Around 90% of the docket consists of cases that are manifestly unfounded or that raise issues previously decided upon.

A single court can hardly fix all the problems that afflict many of Europe's 800 million citizens. Nor should it try. The ECHR should be a backstop for national courts, which have primary responsibility for protecting rights. The court must be able to focus on problems of particular gravity or Europe-wide importance.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe must be more active in overseeing implementation of the court's judgments—thousands remain unexecuted—with the introduction of penalties for states that ignore its rulings. Ultimately, the greatest protection against overuse of the ECHR is an improvement in the quality of justice administered in member states.

Finally, the process of judicial selection must be standardized, made more transparent and grounded in merit, not politics.

Few states want a vibrant judiciary looking over their shoulders, but the reforms must not be used as a wedge to weaken the ECHR. Critics, in the UK and elsewhere, argue that the court's powers should be reduced because of isolated instances of overreach. But the ECHR has been right on the big issues, and has deepened European democracy and expanded Europeans' rights.

Some states may baulk at the cost of European justice. The court, though, is a good investment. For €60 million annually—less than the International Criminal Court or the Yugoslav tribunal—the ECHR creates value for its citizens and increases its soft power abroad.

The court has become a global public good. Reform would save and reinvigorate it.

Thousands watched as ICC prosecutors in The Netherlands questioned the accused—including a deputy prime minister, the head of the civil service and a former national police chief. Whatever the outcome—and there have surely been some missteps—the ICC cases are providing Kenyans with the fullest public examination yet of what happened. To date, they are the only serious attempt to prosecute those responsible.

From Kenya to Yemen and from Sri Lanka to Syria, “The Hague” has come to inspire hope among victims of violence who increasingly see the ICC as a necessary backstop when national court systems cannot, or will not, address mass atrocities. As a result, despite widespread criticism of its performance, and the fact that many major powers—including China, India, Russia and the United States—have yet to join, the ICC is likely here to stay.

But the same cannot be said for many other arms of the system of international justice that has developed over the past six decades.

We are talking of the assemblage of international courts and quasi-judicial bodies that take standards like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and regional conventions and charters, and apply them in concrete cases.

Courts in Africa, the Americas and Europe, together with United Nations “treaty bodies,” oversee state conduct. International criminal courts adjudicate individual responsibility for the most serious crimes. Though different in many ways, all these institutions share the common goal of combating impunity for breaches of human rights and/or humanitarian law. Thus, states have supported—or so we were led to believe—not just the idea of the law, but its operation in practice.

But sadly, states are increasingly reneging on their commitments. Under the radar, governments have in recent years aggressively pushed back against institutions whose job it is to deliver justice for victims of gross abuse.

This spring, the Southern African Development Community—a grouping of 15 states—closed down its regional court, following protests by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that its judges were impeding his government’s land reform program by ordering compensation for former landowners.

Mugabe was not alone in thinking courts should do his bidding. A Minister of Justice from a neighboring country reportedly said, regional courts “serve us, they are for us.” In West Africa, Equatorial Guinea has threatened to pull out of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a regional judicial body that considers rights complaints from throughout the continent, should it deign to hear a human rights case against EG’s leader, President Teodoro Obiang.

The human rights treaty bodies of the United Nations—legal experts who consider individual complaints—issue “views” but cannot effectively follow up. As a result, they are often ignored. A recent study by the Open Society Justice Initiative concluded that, of more than 500 cases in which the UN Human Rights Committee has found violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, fewer than one fifth have received a satisfactory response. Many states never respond.

Governments don’t like independent judges telling them what they can—and can’t—do. The effort to build on the work of the African Commission by creating a separate African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, capable of issuing binding judgments, moves slowly; so far only five governments have accepted its jurisdiction over individual complaints.

Even the European Court of Human Rights—which has the longest history and the most substantial financial backing from its membership—struggles to get states to do what it says. By the end of 2009, more than 7,500 decisions were still awaiting implementation. In Russia, petitioners who dare take the government to Strasbourg have been beaten, kidnapped and even killed. Elsewhere, though filing a lawsuit won’t likely result in violence, hostility to European judges abounds.

Four years after the European Court outlawed racial segregation, Roma children throughout the Czech Republic are still condemned by the thousands to dead-end, separate schools.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron recently pronounced himself “physically sick” over a Strasbourg court ruling granting convicted prisoners the right to vote.

Nor are United Nations-backed tribunals immune from government intransigence. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia—which is designed to bring to account those most responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge—has been stymied as senior government officials publicly refuse to “allow” certain prosecutions to proceed and withhold the testimony of witnesses Phnom Penh would rather not be heard.

All these courts are places of last resort. They serve as safeguards to—but do not replace—domestic courts, which retain primary responsibility for redressing serious rights violations. And yet, in situations where national courts cannot or will not function, supra-national judges play a critical role in standing up for the rule of law.

In the absence of such institutions, many victims of war crimes from Chechnya to the Congo would have nowhere to turn. Even in countries where, thankfully, armed conflict is not present, these courts address discrimination against women and minorities, restrictions on speech by journalists and ordinary citizens, and bias or political interference in civil and criminal proceedings. Where domestic courts lack independence and opportunities for peaceful dissent are few, a regional judicial forum may offer the only opportunity to get a fair hearing.

And while far more is needed to ensure state compliance with decisions, the importance of a simple declaration by a duly constituted body that the law has been broken, and a right violated, should not be underestimated. “This shows we were right,” one client proudly told me when informed of a favorable ruling by the European Court. “No one can take that away from us.”

The political challenges to the courts are aggravated by a chronic lack of financial resources. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a notoriously under-funded body empowered to adjudicate alleged rights violations on the continent, has not published any judgments in more than a year, in part due to its lack of capacity.

It’s not as if the budgets for these bodies are exorbitant. The African Commission’s 2011 budget is less than $10 million. The cost for the Inter-American Court is on the order of $20 million annually. The annual budget for each of the UN treaty bodies—dealing with torture, the rights of children, the rights of women, and other matters—is between $10 and $20 million. These costs compare favorably with those of some domestic proceedings (the UK’s Bloody Sunday inquiry into a notorious incident of police violence in Northern Ireland exceeded 100 million pounds).

But funding justice makes sense. If justice for victims and commitment to the rule of law are not sufficient reasons, the cost of unremedied abuses to good governance and global development should be. Injustice without remedy can lead to violence and instability. As a recent World Bank report concluded, poverty rates are 20% higher in countries affected by repeated cycles of violence. Lawyers and judges on the front end are less expensive than soldiers and peacekeepers on the back. Even in wealthier countries, over time the failure to redress rights violations corrodes public faith in government.

Last December, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon rightly warned that “international justice is under attack in many places,” and urged states to “strengthen our resolve to shut the door on the era of impunity.”

At next year’s high level UN summit on the rule of law, the Secretary General should call for the creation of a Global Fund for Justice. Like the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, the goal would be to secure a stable source of funding to address a problem—in this case, serious breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law—of concern to all humanity. By pooling resources from both private and governmental donors, and developing a resource reservoir to be tapped over several years, the fund would curb the inefficiencies, uncertainties and politicization of the current, ad hoc system.

And Ban Ki Moon should go further. He should dedicate more UN staff to the challenge of implementing human rights rulings—so that judgments become real. He should designate a Special Representative to highlight the issue and report annually on states’ record of compliance. And he should convene a discussion at the next General Assembly meeting of states’ obligations to provide political support for international and regional judicial institutions.

Our emerging system of global justice is under threat. The Secretary General must use more than words to defend it.

This is the first in an occasional series by the author looking at the issues facing this year's United Nations meeting on the rule of law.

This December, the court’s governing body—the Assembly of States Parties—will select a new prosecutor (Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the first prosecutor, must step down in 2012 after a nine-year term of office) and six new judges (out of a total of 18). Early next year, elections will be held among the judges for the court’s next president and two vice presidents. In 2013, the judges will also select a new registrar, the court’s chief administrator. These changes happen as the ICC is completing its first trials. Together, they offer a major challenge  and a significant opportunity  for this still-young institution to deliver on its promise of ending impunity for grave crimes.

Unfortunately, the same governments that elect these officials regularly treat the court as a political football—embracing it when it suits their interests, bargaining it away for other aims when it doesn't. Though the UN Security Council has referred crises like Darfur and Libya to the court when it needed to appear tough, it has then failed to support, or even downplayed, the ICC when its actions—like the indictment of a head of state—are seen at odds with changing political goals. This lack of commitment towards the ICC weakens it. Nowhere is this more evident than in the selection of its senior officers.

Many capable and committed persons have staffed international courts over the years. And yet, it is no secret that there have been glaring exceptions. Judges with little or no trial experience—including at least one who lacked a law degree—have allowed proceedings to drag on, devoted unnecessary time to frivolous arguments, made legally unfounded rulings, and let some defendants misuse the courtroom as a platform for political speeches.  On occasion, judges have fallen asleep during proceedings, and even, in one notorious case at an international tribunal addressing crimes in Rwanda, were seen laughing during testimony by a rape victim.

Such lapses not only impair the integrity of the trial in question. They also diminish public trust in these institutions, and in the overarching struggle for the rule of law.

Prior contests for judicial office at international courts have been marred by political horse trading among sponsoring states. The ICC selection process was supposed to mark an improvement—with stricter qualifications for office, more transparency, and emphasis on merit over connections. But the experience so far has been mixed.

The elections this December offer a chance to do better. Perhaps no choice is more important than that of prosecutor, the public face of the court.  The leading candidate, many believe, is the current deputy prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, a respected former attorney general from The Gambia. This June, Bensouda received the formal endorsement of the African Union. If in the end Bensouda is chosen, she and the ICC will be stronger if her election is seen to be founded upon her genuine strengths—prosecutorial experience; sound judgment; a commitment to, and skill at, engaging both victims and the wider public in the court’s work—rather than a pay-off to any state or group of states.

The next prosecutor and new judges will inherit a full docket of complex cases, outstanding arrest warrants for leaders from Sudan’s Bashir to Libya’s Qaddafi, and pressure from financially strapped governments to do more with less. Perhaps most challenging, the court must overcome perceptions that Africa has been singled out for scrutiny while abuses by Western leaders get a free pass. Only by adhering to the highest standards of professional conduct may court officials win sufficient legitimacy over time to persuade the major powers presently outside the current ICC system—including China, India, Russia and the US—to join.

In these circumstances, the importance of choosing only the most competent candidates cannot be overstated.  The court’s mission, and the hopes that victims place in it, are too important to be subjected to cynical back room deals.

Between now and December, when the Assembly of States Parties convenes in New York, diplomats will be tested. Governments must put aside their parochial interests for the larger aim of building an institution to serve all humanity.

Official Washington breathed a sigh of relief at the impunity bestowed on the rest. “I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us,” Leon E. Panetta, CIA director, said in his last day in office before being sworn in as U.S. defense secretary. “We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency’s history.”

And yet, it’s a different story overseas, where courts and governments are exposing, and pursuing accountability for, U.S. misdeeds. As a result, the Obama Administration’s shameful effort to bury the facts of past abuse won’t succeed.

Last year, Britain agreed to compensate its citizens who had been detained at Guantanamo, and to undertake an inquiry into the involvement of its own officials in U.S.-sponsored violations. Rights groups are concerned that the terms of the inquiry are not sufficiently transparent. But importantly Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has acknowledged that “the longer these questions remain unanswered, the bigger the stain on our reputation as a country that believes in freedom, fairness and human rights grows."

The U.S. has remained determined, in President Obama’s words, to “look forward,” not “backwards.” Thus, Washington has never acknowledged its role in sending Maher Arar, a Canadian computer engineer, to ten months of torture in Syria in 2002-03. An exhaustive inquiry subsequently found that Arar was innocent of any terrorist activity and had been wrongly and brutally mistreated.

In 2007, the Canadian government issued a formal apology for its part in the affair and awarded Arar monetary compensation. "We cannot go back and fix the injustice that occurred to Mr. Arar," Prime Minister Stephen Harper rightly said at the time. “However, we can make changes to lessen the likelihood that something like this will ever happen again."

In stark and embarrassing contrast, the U.S. under both Presidents Bush and Obama has steadfastly refused to admit it made a mistake.

Indeed, last year, Obama’s Justice Department successfully persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Arar’s case, leaving in force a federal appellate ruling that effectively grants executive branch officials immunity from torture.

In another notorious error, in 2003, Khaled el-Masri, a German national, was detained incommunicado for 23 days in Macedonia, then turned over to the CIA and beaten, kicked and denied medical care during four months he spent locked in the “Salt Pit,” a secret prison in Afghanistan. Never charged, el-Masri was finally flown back to Europe, and dumped on the side of a road in Albania long after U.S.officials knew they had the wrong man.

Although Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice reportedly admitted to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that el-Masri had been “erroneously taken,” Washington has never publicly acknowledged its role in Masri’s mistreatment. Instead, senior U.S. officials have persistently denied responsibility and obtained dismissal of Masri’s attempts to secure judicial redress in U.S. courts on the grounds that “state secrets” precluded consideration of his claims.

While the U.S. has apparently closed its books on the case, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is actively considering a legal petition alleging Macedonian government complicity in Masri’s unlawful torture and rendition.

In a third matter, the European Parliament last month called on U.S. authorities not to seek the death penalty for  Guantanamo prisoner and accused USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a military commission trial to be held in the coming weeks. In May, al-Nashiri filed a lawsuit in the Strasbourg court alleging that Poland enabled his torture and secret detention at a CIA “black site” on Polish soil in 2002 and 2003.

Once again,Washington is out of step with the rest of the world in trying to sweep under the rug serious allegations of criminal activity.

But the questions will not go away. While America stonewalls, others will investigate, publish the truth, and seek justice. Until the U.S. confronts this unhappy chapter from its past, its global image – already tarnished - will further deteriorate.

As the conflict in Libya drags on, with a swift military solution looking increasingly less likely, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has now launched its bid to hold Muammar al-Qaddafi accountable for his crimes.

The ICC's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, announced on May 16 that he will seek the arrest of Qaddafi—along with his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi—for "widespread and systematic attacks" against civilians. It remains to be seen whether ICC judges will issue warrants for the three's arrest, but the question is already being asked: Will the threat of ICC prosecution only discourage the Libyan leader from negotiating his eventual departure?

Blind fidelity to law, some say, removes a potentially valuable carrot—amnesty—from the negotiator's tool kit. And Libyan leaders are offering a cease-fire. So why risk prolonging a reign of terror in Libya simply for the sake of a moral ideal?

It's a fair question, but not an unfamiliar one; we make similar tactical choices every day in our own cities and towns. Take the example of kidnappers: The prospect of arrest may discourage some from giving up, extend the period of captivity for their victims, and heighten the risk of violence. But police don't let these criminals walk free. Rather, they manage the short-term risks in order to preserve the long-term deterrent impact on others of swift and sure punishment.

Is the international arena different? In fact, the accumulating experience of the past two decades shows that, though in the short run the prospect of justice may lead some teetering autocrats to cling to power—Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is an oft-cited example—the prosecution of sitting senior leaders for war crimes often speeds an end to conflict.

In 1995, ethnic cleansing had been raging for three years in Bosnia, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, widespread rape, and massive displacement of civilians. When the U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted two of the main perpetrators—Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic—on the eve of the Dayton peace talks, some cried foul. But the threat of prosecution did not prevent negotiators from reaching an agreement to end the war. Indeed, by keeping the indictees from attending Dayton, the charges may have helped U.S. officials find common ground among Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs.

After Dayton, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remained in power and continued his use of violence to achieve political ends. In 1998, as conflict in Kosovo intensified and reports of atrocities by Yugoslav military and Serbian paramilitary forces against ethnic Albanian civilians proliferated, NATO launched a series of air raids against Yugoslavia to force Milosevic to halt military operations. The ICTY's indictment of Milosevic in May 1999, just as NATO's military campaign in Kosovo was under way, sparked concern that, by rigidifying attitudes on all sides, it would block a deal. But two weeks later, the war ended when Milosevic accepted the terms of a U.S.-brokered peace plan, despite the ICTY indictment. He lost power after elections in late 2000 and was handed over to U.N. custody in June 2001.

In Africa, as well, concern has arisen about the impact of a judicial process on potential or ongoing peace negotiations. Ghanaian officials were outraged when, in June 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone made public an indictment against Liberian President Charles Taylor at the very moment when he was attending talks in Accra aimed at ending Liberia's civil war. Although Ghana refused to arrest Taylor, the indictment made it politically impossible for him to continue as president. Two months later, he fled to Nigeria under a purported grant of asylum by that country's president, in exchange for his promise not to meddle further in Liberia's politics. In 2006, as a growing chorus of voices in West Africa and beyond pressed for his apprehension, Taylor was forced to flee his Nigerian hideout. He was subsequently turned over for trial in The Hague. Liberia is today a country at peace.

In October 2005, the ICC unsealed its first warrants of arrest, for senior leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which had long been accused of brutal conduct during its 20-year struggle with Uganda's government. Many Ugandans—particularly those in the rural northwest— were desperate to halt the fighting, but worried that the court's action would create insurmountable disincentives to peace. But just six weeks later, the LRA made public its desire to hold talks with the Ugandan government. Although those talks were never consummated and LRA leader Joseph Kony remains at large, it's widely acknowledged that the ICC's action helped isolate the LRA and permanently diminish it as a fighting force. Indeed, as the U.S. ambassador to Uganda made clear in 2006, "The ICC is not a hurdle to the talks. Instead, it is the reason why we have peace talks today."

In mid-2008, U.S. and other officials voiced concern that the ICC prosecutor's request to charge Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for crimes in Darfur risked reigniting war in south Sudan. "[M]any diplomats, analysts and aid workers," the New York Times noted at the time, "worry that the Sudanese government could lash out at the prosecutor's move ... shutting the door to vital diplomatic efforts to bring lasting peace." Three years later, while defying the court's issuance of arrest warrants against him for genocide and crimes against humanity, Bashir has accepted the south's secession and even publicly pledged his full support for the new state.

In short, as these examples suggest, justice is often worth pursuing—not simply for its own sake, but because it helps resolve conflicts by increasing international pressure. By delegitimizing leaders who commit crimes against civilian populations, the prospect of legal sanction may reduce their capacity for political obstruction and, as is the case in Libya, encourage subordinates to abandon ship. Such thinking may have led not only the United States, but China and Russia, to support the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an ICC investigation in Libya, even though none of these three have ratified the court's underlying statute.

At least in the short run, justice may well complicate diplomatic efforts. Thus the timing—if not the imperative—of accountability may have to adjust. But the canard that international justice is quixotic, impractical, and harmful is part of a broader pattern of resistance to the movement for accountability that has emerged since the end of the Cold War. Critics have balked at the price tag (more than 100 million euros annually each for both the ICC and the ICTY), the length of proceedings (Milosevic died in his cell before judgment while the ICC has yet to complete its first trial), and the fact that its site at The Hague is too remote from the crime sites and the victims it serves.

It's true that the ICC is often not the most appropriate vehicle for judging facts and imposing sentences. There is increasing recognition that national courts—closer to victims and witnesses, less costly, and often more widely accepted—are preferable, when they are given the resources, the capacity, and the necessary political backing. But, as long as local courts remain unable or unwilling to put heads of state and others in the dock for grave crimes, international justice—whether through the ICC or U.N.-backed hybrid tribunals—will remain essential components of an emerging global accountability framework.

Perhaps that is why, despite the concerns of so-called "realists," the U.N. Security Council has referred two major crises in succession to the ICC, first Darfur and then (unanimously) Libya. Even the most hardened politicians seem to appreciate that, whatever its shortcomings, the ICC is a valuable means of addressing armed conflict. In the end, the strongest argument for some form of accountability may be to consider what a world without any would look like. It is, in fact, a world from which we have only recently emerged—one where dictators like Idi Amin, Suharto, and Trujillo oversaw mass killings without fear of punishment.

That questions remain about how to enforce the new norm of accountability in practice is a testament to how much has changed so fast. As at the domestic level, so too in the world of diplomacy the benefits of sticking to principle multiply over time. Yes, the prospect of ICC action has not stopped Qaddafi's forces from using cluster bombs or land mines against civilians in Misrata.

And yet, over time, consistent U.S. support for Qaddafi's prosecution will bolster the credibility of the international community's deterrent for the next war criminal who threatens peace. By contrast, yielding now to tempting, if shortsighted, calls for "flexibility" in accommodating Qaddafi will give future "mad dogs" reason to believe they can get away with murder.

That is hardly in Washington's interest.

More than 30 years after the murderous Khmer Rouge were driven from power in Cambodia, the UN-backed effort to bring justice to the victims of the killing fields stands on the brink of ignominious failure due to political interference from the Cambodian government and the indifference of the international community.

A hybrid court, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, has spent over $200 million since it was set up in 2003 with both international and local judges and prosecutors. It has tried only one person: Kang Kech Eav, or Duch, the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison complex, who is appealing his conviction for crimes against humanity, murder, and torture.

Now Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has taken an axe to further proceedings. In power for over 25 years, Hun Sen has repeatedly and publicly declared that the court should try only one more case (case “002” in court parlance), against four detained senior ex-Khmer Rouge leaders, all of whom are in their late 70s or 80s.

As for five additional unnamed suspects, whom the court’s pretrial chamber approved for investigation, Hun Sen bluntly informed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon late last year that they would not be “allowed” to go forward.

The reason offered is the supposed threat any additional trial would pose to peace in Cambodia. Others suspect that the prime minister is simply enforcing a pact he long ago cut within his ruling Cambodian People’s Party that none of its ex-Khmer Rouge members would ever be tried or otherwise exposed for crimes they committed, no matter how serious.

Other actors have their own reasons for acquiescing in this. Donors want to save money and are anxious for the court to wind up operations.

Having invested more than a decade in negotiations to launch the court and keep it alive, the United Nations finds it hard to walk away now. It is institutionally committed to the court, even though in 2002, then-secretary general Kofi Annan recommended against UN involvement in a tribunal which he rightly believed lacked adequate protections against precisely the kind of political interference that is blocking the additional cases.

Annan was compelled by pressure from the United States, Australia, France and Japan to accept the present flawed structure (the International Criminal Court is limited to prosecuting crimes that were committed after it was established in 2002).

Court officials are thus caught in a trap. The fearful Cambodian staff must respond to political pressures. Even international staffers feel constrained to focus their efforts on making the most of case 002, given the unlikelihood of any further trials.

As a result, the right course of action — allowing all cases currently before the judges to proceed through to completion — now seems unattainable. Advocates of impartial justice are faced, as they have been throughout the morally tainted history of this tribunal, with a choice of lesser evils.

One option under discussion would involve deception. According to various sources, court officials might “gracefully” dispose of the additional five suspects, for example, by presumptively finding that none of them are among those “most responsible” for Khmer Rouge crimes, as the governing statute requires. Such a move would implicate the court in a political decision to halt proceedings.

Unfortunately, this is where things seem to be headed. By their own awkward admission, the Cambodian and international judges responsible for investigating the additional cases have restricted their staff to desk review; no field investigation is underway. This month the deputy national co-prosecutor reaffirmed there would be no further prosecutions. The fix, it seems, is in.

A preferable, if still distasteful, alternative, would be to honestly horse-trade abandonment of the additional cases in exchange for a guarantee of total government cooperation, and full donor resources, for case 002.

The United Nations and the Cambodian authorities should openly declare that the hybrid court will cease operations after conclusion of case 002 due to government objections and the lack of continued funding. As part of the squalid bargain, the government should publicly commit itself to lifting its illegal veto of the pending witness summonses and comply swiftly with any other court order or request.

Even with these conditions fulfilled, victims of the Khmer Rouge will be cheated of the more comprehensive accountability further trials would have produced. And every Cambodian will know that all the will the international community could muster was not sufficient to create a truly independent court. It’s time for the UN to end the charade.

The Council of Europe's watchdog says Czech marginalization of Roma children is an outrage—but no action has been taken to deal with the problem.

Europe's top human-rights watchdog, Thomas Hammarberg, issued an urgent rebuke to the Czech Republic last week: Stop the continued racial segregation of Roma children in schools, which damns them to “a future as second-class citizens.”

But unless the Czech government acts with lightning speed over the next few months, thousands of Roma children will end up in what amount to dead-end classes this September—incorrectly placed in "practical schools" for children with mental disabilities.

Three years ago, a landmark judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned the treatment of Roma children as discriminatory. But Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human-rights commissioner, found in his report that “little has changed on the ground.”

In some parts of the country, Roma children are still up to 27 times more likely than others to be wrongly sent to "practical schools" with an inferior curriculum that leaves them poorly educated and with few job options.

Czech officials have neither acknowledged the gravity of the problem, nor demonstrated resolve in addressing it. In short, although the ECHR decision mandated an end to ethnic-based school placements, discrimination against Roma in education remains widespread in the Czech Republic.

Other European governments—whose foreign ministers sit on the Council of Europe's top political body overseeing human rights—could help make sure more Roma children do not lose their shot at a good education.

But to date, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers has given the Czech Republic a pass.

Inexplicably, the committee has praised the adoption of a National Action Plan for Inclusive Education that sets no targets for desegregation, and that will not start being implemented—by the government's own estimates—until 2014. It has overlooked the fact that the government has not allocated any funding for this plan, despite accessing millions in European Union funds specifically for this purpose. (About 10% of the money has been spent and the remainder is in danger of being diverted to another purpose or handed back to the EU.)

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic's center-right government, which came to power in May 2010, has dismantled those parts of the education ministry genuinely trying to pursue an inclusive education agenda. It downsized the section dealing with special education and pushed out staff committed to equal opportunity. Others left of their own accord, citing a lack of political will to reform.

Last December, the Committee of Ministers promised to “resume consideration” of this case at its next meeting. But that will not happen. Roma education in the Czech Republic was not placed on the agenda of the committee's meetings for March 8–10.

This is a missed opportunity, especially in the wake of Hammarberg's report.

“With thousands of Roma children effectively excluded from the mainstream education system in the Czech Republic...it is now time to speed up the implementation of the inclusive education agenda,” the report says.

Hammarberg urged the Czech government to mark “a clear change of direction already with the next intake of children in the 2011-2012 school year.”

But admissions for the next school year have already started—and the system of school assignment remains unchanged.

Removing barriers to educational equality is essential if Roma are to become full and equal citizens of Europe. The Committee of Ministers—whose responsibility it is to oversee the implementation of ECHR judgments—must spur the Czech government to action. It should be warning right now that concrete steps are needed by its next meeting in June. No more Roma children should be sent to "practical" schools until the placement and testing systems are overhauled. The plan for inclusive education must specify a timetable for desegregation. And adequate funding must be allocated.

How many more generations of Roma children must be condemned to second-class education before the committee can be persuaded to act?