PIORE: How has the approach to preventing and responding to war crimes changed over the last eight years? SCHEFFER: The responses are much more focused, much more achievable. The record is not perfect. There is no question that we have learned many lessons about the need to react far more quickly, and sometimes far more unconventionally, than has previously been the case when confronting more traditional conflicts. We’ve learned that when you have a conflict associated with atrocities, it’s absolutely essential to build response mechanisms as quickly as possible. Those response mechanisms had either not matured or were not quickly triggered in the Rwanda and Srebrenica cases.
You have said that the international community “pays a far higher price coping with the aftermath of genocide than if it were prepared to defeat genocide in its earliest stages.” Could you expand on that? The cost of dealing with a genocide is not only a financial cost. There’s the cost that a genocide brings in terms of the economic collapse of the society, the social and housing structures–everything begins to collapse in the aftermath. It can take decades to rebuild an economic infrastructure and an enormous amount of international assistance. Putting a military force on the ground as a breaker to the threat of genocidal forces can actually be a far cheaper proposition.
What do you see as the largest challenges lying ahead for the next administration? First to ensure that the institutions or the courts that have been established to address atrocities can do their job effectively. It’s important that those institutions be kept alive. And that’s going to require U.S. support. If there is hesitancy in part of our society over the existence of these international courts, the best way to address that concern is to increase our support for domestic judicial systems that can credibly take on the investigation and prosecution of these types of crimes.
President-elect Bush has made it clear he is likely to scale back–or at least re-evaluate–the U.S. role in peacekeeping operations. If the new administration decides to scale back in places like Kosovo, what impact do you think that will have on human rights? I think it would have a very serious impact. There will often be occasions where the effective protection of human rights and the prevention of genocide will require the presence of military forces, and it will be very important to weigh the impact on human-rights enforcement if our troops withdraw too early.
Why did Clinton decide to sign on to the ICC? How close was he to deciding not to? The long wait reflects the seriousness with which we consider not only the merits of the treaty but also the flaws. We’ve worked very hard to improve it. And that process was very beneficial for U.S. interests. The president’s decision enables the U.S. to continue to assert influence and negotiate on the ICC and that is in the best interests of the United States.
Last week the Cambodian National Assembly passed a law to set up a tribunal. Why do you think Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government finally agreed to this? I think he sees the value of it simply as a matter of law and of bringing closure to a very painful chapter in Cambodian history. And also I think it was impressed upon the Cambodian leadership–and we weren’t only ones, there were other countries–that until they get this behind them with some credible judicial mechanism it will be extremely difficult to develop the kind of relationships with other countries that would open up trade and assistance and really allow Cambodia to enter the international community on a firm footing. In this country, without some accountability for the Khmer Rouge crimes it’s just very difficult to persuade members of our Congress of the merit of real assistance and deeper ties to the Cambodian people. I think they were persuaded that in a sense this was their ticket to greater legitimacy.
