Argument: Accountability

It is a fundamental principle of morality that individuals should be held responsible for their crimes – that is the reason why we, as societies, have criminal law.

Prosecuting people – holding them responsible for their crimes – is a moral imperative. We all wish to live in a society where everyone is equally accountable when they commit crime as one in which not everyone is held to account is fundamentally unjust; it creates one rule for the powerless and another for those who are ‘needed’ to help create peace. This would simply incentivise people to try to make themselves indispensable strongmen – not a sustainable basis for a peaceful society.

Candidate 1: "Dayton worked despite not inviting Karadzic and Mladic. Both of those are currently on trial for the most serious crimes imaginable – Karadzic for, amongst other things, his alleged role in ordering the Srebrenica massacre, and Mladic for Srbrenica and the Siege of Sarajevo.

These prosecutions have not caused problems for peace in the Balkans and Croatia, one of the participants in the conflict, has joined the European Union.

Similarly, despite the ICC indictment, coupled with better results obtained by the Ugandan military, has lead towards the prospect of surrender by the LRA, despite their leaders such as Joseph Kony being indicted [1] .

[1] BBC News, “LRA leader Joseph Kony ‘in surrender talks’ with CAR”, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25027616"
Candidate 2: "While distasteful, sometimes cutting deals with perpetrators is necessary to bring a quick end to the human suffering that conflicts cause [1] .

In advocating prosecutions, justice can simply ignore victims. Atrocities are more than likely to have been committed by more than one side in a conflict. As those leaders do not want to be prosecuted, justice can act as a bar to peace. Moreover if people are responsible and accountable to society then that society should be able to agree to forgo justice in order to create peace if it is deemed necessary.

[1] Grono, Nick and O’Brien, Adam, “Justice in Conflict? The IOCC and Peace Processes”, Courting Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC in Africa, 2008, available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/research/crisisStates/download/others/ICC%20in%20Africa.pdf , chapter 2"
Candidate 3: "This fails for two reasons. Firstly, prosecutions are not always a deterrent to future crimes. Secondly that justice is not necessary in all cases to prevent recidivism – justice has not been needed in many cases, such as in Haiti after the 2004 coup, Haiti’s subsequent problems being caused by natural disasters."
Candidate 4: "Holocaust denial does still exists today despite the Nuremburg trials and immense amounts of evidence. Also, Japanese denialism over forced prostitution in the Second World War is part of mainstream politics [1] .

Despite ICTY convictions, denial of atrocities in the Yugoslav wars continue.

[1] See Honda, Masakazu and Takada, Makoto, “LDP Pressure led to cuts in NHK show”, The Asahi Shimbun, 12 January 2005, http://www.asahi.com/english/politics/TKY200501120160.html"
Candidate 5: "Argentina did not prosecute for a long time after the collapse of the junta [1] , a 1986 law, commonly known as the Full Stop Law (also known by its number, Law 23492), prohibited prosecution of those involved in the dirty war which resulted in up to 30,000 deaths.

However, Argentina managed to build a lasting peace, and society without prosecutions.

[1] Kersten, Mark, “The Fallacy of Sequencing Peace and Justice”, Opinio Juris, 29 September 2011, http://opiniojuris.org/2011/09/29/the-fallacy-of-sequencing-peace-and-ju..."
Candidate 6: "Justice is not easy. However, it needs to be done – for its own ends, and for a lasting peace. In cases where there are a huge number of perpetrators then the obvious approach is to offer an amnesty to those who committed smaller crimes while prosecuting those who provoked or ordered the crimes."

While distasteful, sometimes cutting deals with perpetrators is necessary to bring a quick end to the human suffering that conflicts cause [1] .

In advocating prosecutions, justice can simply ignore victims. Atrocities are more than likely to have been committed by more than one side in a conflict. As those leaders do not want to be prosecuted, justice can act as a bar to peace. Moreover if people are responsible and accountable to society then that society should be able to agree to forgo justice in order to create peace if it is deemed necessary.

[1] Grono, Nick and O’Brien, Adam, “Justice in Conflict? The IOCC and Peace Processes”, Courting Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC in Africa, 2008, available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/research/crisisStates/download/others/ICC%20in%20Africa.pdf , chapter 2
