Iraq: UN Security Council Must Ensure Justice
Expert Group Needed to Address Past Crimes

(New York, September 5, 2003) - The United Nations Security
Council must ensure that justice for Saddam Hussein's victims is
part of Iraq's political transition, Human Rights Watch said
today. The Council is currently debating a new resolution on
Iraq.

The draft resolution circulated by the United States this week
seeks international assistance for the stabilization and
reconstruction of Iraq, but makes no reference to justice or
human rights issues.

"President Bush and Prime Minister Blair placed great emphasis on
the abuses Saddam Hussein committed against his own people as a
justification for military action against Iraq," said Kenneth
Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "But what are
they doing now to ensure justice and accountability for those
terrible crimes?"

The Coalition Provisional Authority has failed to take concrete
steps to ensure those responsible receive fair trials before
impartial and independent courts. While some recent efforts have
been made, coalition forces initially failed to secure
gravesites, resulting in the destruction of substantial evidence,
and numerous documents were pilfered or destroyed in looting.

"It is a sad irony that the United States and United Kingdom
should be investing such effort in investigating Saddam's
chemical and biological weapons program, but at the same time
doing so little with regard to justice for his crimes against his
own people," Roth said.

Ensuring accountability for past abuses would be essential for
establishing security in Iraq by dissuading people from taking
the law into their own hands, Human Rights Watch said. The
Security Council should appoint a group of international and
Iraqi experts to coordinate evidence collection and preservation
and consider justice options, as it did for the former
Yugoslavia. This proposal was supported by late Sergio Vieira de
Mello, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Iraq,
before his death last month in a bomb attack.
Human Rights Watch stressed that any justice or accountability
process in Iraq must have legitimacy and credibility in the eyes
of the Iraqi people and international community as a whole. It
warned that after thirty years of Ba'ath Party rule the Iraqi
judicial system lacked the capacity and independence to try
crimes of this complexity and magnitude and would need
international support and assistance.

"Time is of the essence," said Roth. "Unless the Security Council
shows leadership on this issue, more vital evidence risks being
lost and perpetrators may escape the law."-keralamonitor.com