RECENTLY, the high court in the little country of Belgium made a very big ruling. The Supreme Court of Belgium made its decision about events which occurred in September 1982, in or near the refugee camps known as Sabra and Shatila, in the country of Lebanon. The outcome of the court's ruling threatens the sovereignty of democracies around the world.
In its latest and most controversial verdict, the Belgian Supreme Court overturned the decision of a lower appeals court, ruling that several members of Israel's military hierarchy at the time of the events could be tried in Belgian courts for war crimes. The Court ruled that they could be tried despite their absence from Belgian soil, though it made clear that Ariel Sharon could not be tried until he has left the Office of Prime Minister of Israel. Human rights organizations greeted the ruling with praise, but the Israeli government expressed vehement criticism, withdrawing its ambassador over what it sees as libelous character assassination at the hands of Belgium's judiciary.
The case in the Supreme Court was brought by survivors of what was by any account a brutal massacre of mostly Muslim Palestinian men, women and children in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila by a Lebanese paramilitary group known as the Phalangists, which was composed mainly of Christian Arabs. The plaintiffs in the Belgian court case alleged that Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Defense of Israel, as well as several commanders of the Israeli Defense Forces, were responsible for the death of the Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila. The IDF had entered Lebanon to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization's paramilitary infrastructure, which was waging a guerrilla war upon Israeli population centers in Northern Israel.
The plaintiffs were able to bring this unusual case to trial as a result of a controversial law enacted by the Belgian Parliament in 1993 that allows the criminal justice system in Belgium "universal jurisdiction" over "the punishment of grave breaches of international humanitarian law," implying that such breaches need not occur on Belgian soil, involve Belgian citizens or property or have any connection to Belgian interests. The law enables the Belgian judicial system to issue arrest warrants and to prosecute any members of the international community suspected of these crimes.
Citizens of democracies around the world have much to fear from the precedent set by the Belgian Court. What this court purports to do in this case is straightforward and unabashed: It places the court system, and thereby the morals, of the Kingdom of Belgium ahead of those of any other country in the world. As the defense for both the Israeli delegation and for a similar case against the Democratic Republic of Congo's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yerodia Ndombasi has argued the Belgian law and the ruling of the court explicitly violate the principle set down by the U.N. Charter of "territorial integrity and sovereign equality of all United Nations member states."
Further, the ruling of the court attempts to discredit the legitimacy of the Israeli judicial system, which decided not to try Sharon for war crimes. This decision was based on the findings of the Kahane Commission established by the Israeli Government to investigate the massacres in Sabra and Shatila, which found that Ariel Sharon and several other IDF commanders at the time of the massacre were at the most "indirectly responsible" for the massacres. The Kahane ruling was based on copious testimony and evidence, and rightly chastised Sharon and other leaders for failing to anticipate the bloodthirstiness of the Phalangists, but it stopped short of accusing the Defense Minister of crimes against humanity. By seeking to try an Israeli for a crime for which he has already been exonerated, the ruling implies a haughty condemnation of the vigorous Israeli court system, which has, in its 55-year history, tried and often convicted other Israelis accused of such crimes.
The Belgian decision must be opposed by any democracy that values its own morals as sacred and seeks to defend its right to self-determination. The decision threatens every nation that adheres to international agreements, because it allows for a single country to prosecute citizens of any nationality in crimes unrelated to that country's domain.
Think of the possible cases that the existence of such a precedent could yield: Swiss doctors being tried in America for aiding the euthanasia of terminally ill Swiss patients; arrest warrants issued by France or Germany for the governors of Texas, Florida and Virginia, for failure to stop the execution of death row inmates convicted of capital murder; requests for the extradition to Virginia of former leaders of India and Indonesia for their support of abortion clinics that practice late-term abortions (against a proposed Virginia ban).
Even the Belgian legislature seems to have realized the danger of the current situation of Belgian legal jurisdiction. In spite of the direction taken by the judiciary, legislation is currently being debated that would limit the jurisdiction of the Belgian courts to persons physically present in Belgium.
As anyone can see, the principle that any one nation should have universal jurisdiction in any matter is dangerous to the free exercise of self-determination and compromises the legitimacy of the democratic judicial systems of nations across the globe. The case against Sharon is illogical and should be opposed, as it threatens the very understandings by which nations interact.
(Ilan Gutherz is a Cavalier Daily
viewpoint writer.)
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