Christopher Greenwood QC explains why, in relation to Saddam Hussein
a trial in Iraq with international assistance offers the best chance of a fair and effective process of justice.
To those who would entrust the task to an international body he explains that
It is Iraqi society that most obviously needs the catharsis that a criminal trial could bring. Moreover, to deny Iraqi society the opportunity to try its former dictator would run counter to the objective of restoring sovereignty to the people of Iraq at the first opportunity
and to the argument that Saddam would not receive justice in his home country he considers that
the alacrity with which some lawyers in the West have assumed that Iraqis could not conduct a fair trial is unedifying, to say the least. It is true that the Iraqi judiciary has no experience of a trial for crimes on this scale but the same could have been said about the international criminal tribunals when they were first created
There are more arguments for his conclusion in the article itself. Read the whole thing.
