A few cases worth noting, all at different stages but all involving the responsibility of state officials for international crimes.

The ICTY has announced the arrest of Goran Hadzic, who until now was the only person indicted by the tribunal who was still at large. Hadzic was wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity , stemming from his time as the “President of the Government of the self-proclaimed “Serbian Autonomous District Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srijem” and the so-called ‘Republic of Serbian Krajina’ during the Yugoslav conflict. This is the second recent arrest that Serbia has made of an indicted fugitive, seemingly indicating a greater willingness to cooperate with the Tribunal — which the EU had indicated was necessary for it to be eligible for membership.

In Washington, Human Rights Watch has released a 107-page report called “Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees.” In it, HRW details what it refers to as “overwhelming evidence” that senior Bush administration officials are liable for torture and war crimes during the post-9/11 period, for authorizing various forms of mistreatment of persons detained as part of the “war on terror.” This includes former President George W. Bush, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and former CIA Director George Tenet. The report also criticizes the Obama adminstration for doing little to ensure accountability, suggesting that its failure to investigate and prosecute these crimes is a breach of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Finally, here at home, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal recently released its decision in the case of Minister of Citizenship v. Ezokola. Ezokola was the second-in-command at the permananet mission of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the United Nations from 2004 to 2008, after which he fled to Canada because of his disagreements with the government of Laurent Kabila. He and his family made refugee claims, but the immigration Panel they faced rejected the application on the grounds that there were serious reasons to believe Ezokola was complicit in crimes against humanity. On judicial review of that finding, the applications Judge overturned that finding on the basis that, while the government of the DRC had committed crimes against humanity, Ezokola could not be “complicit”: “one cannot be an accomplice without having personally participated in the crimes alleged, personally conspired to commit them or personally facilitated their commission.”

The Court of Appeal reversed this finding, holding that the Applications judge had used the wrong test for complicity. Personal participation, conspiracy or facilitation, wrote Justice Noel for a unanimous court of appeal, was not necessary; “in my view, a senior official may, by remaining in his or her position without protest and continuing to defend the interests of his or her government while being aware of the crimes committed by this government demonstrate “personal and knowing participation” in these crimes and be complicit with the government in their commission.” (para. 72)

The matter was sent back for review by a new Panel, because the original Panel had itself not applied the correct test for complicity.

Nothing startling here, but the armor of impunity continues to be chipped away.