Damien Rogers

New Generation of Prosecutors: Warrants, Summonses and Opening Statements

This penultimate chapter introduces two individuals, Luis Moreno-Ocampo and Fatou Bensouda, the former as the first to occupy the post of ICC prosecutor and the latter as the incumbent. Exploring their preparation of warrants of arrest and summonses to appear, Rogers reveals a bias favouring the referring state authority by targeting leaders of rebel armed groups as well as leaders of outlaw states. The chapter also examines these prosecutors’ first opening statements, which express rhetoric containing a mix of legal, political and war registers. Rogers argues that when their biases and varying registers are understood as an extension of the conditions giving rise to the court, then prosecutions of mass atrocity become another means of waging politico-cultural civil war for control over the modernist project.

Opening Statements at The Hague and Arusha

The first opening statements at the ICTY and the ICTR, Rogers explains, were vital ingredients in the trial process and proved fundamental to the reinvigorated efforts to prosecute mass atrocities after the end of the Cold War. This chapter argues that the second generation of international prosecutors no longer needed to overtly vilify discredited utopian movements as neoliberalism was firmly entrenched in many places throughout the world. Nevertheless, their prosecutorial conduct produced a political rhetoric implicitly endorsing the neoliberal dispensation and thereby constituted a form of politics. The chapter also argues that when these prosecutors denounce defendants and call for them to be cast out beyond humanity’s ranks, they do so in support of those seeking to control the modernist project.

Opening Statements at Nuremberg and Tokyo

Rogers shows that the opening statements made by Jackson at Nuremberg and Keenan at Tokyo were vital ingredients in the trial process. This chapter describes how both prosecutors used legal rhetoric that self-consciously distinguishes itself from political concerns and distanced the trial from the ugly realities of international armed conflict. By examining their vilification of Nazism and Shinto-Imperialism as two discredited utopian movements, the chapter argues that this prosecutorial conduct was politics in action, especially as both prosecutors explicitly extolled the virtues of neo-capitalism. Rogers goes as far as to suggest the prosecutors’ denouncing of the defendants invokes a belligerent rhetoric of silent war.

Ad-hoc International Criminal Tribunals

Rogers pays close attention to the underlying material conditions and the more immediate circumstances that gave rise to a second pair of tribunals designed to prosecute mass atrocity. This chapter argues that the consensus within the UN Security Council to establish ad-hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda reflects the rise of US global hegemony in the aftermath of the Cold War. The chapter reveals the real purpose behind these ad-hoc tribunals was the UN Security Council’s wish to reassert its primacy in world affairs. Casting light on contemporaneous peace-building efforts, this chapter suggests these tribunals are best understood in the context of neoliberalism’s spread from the 1970s up until the 1990s. Rogers goes as far as to claim these prosecutions of mass atrocity are a continuation of the politico-cultural civil war fought for control over the modernity project.

Indictment of German and Japanese War Leaders

Rogers introduces the first generation of “mass atrocity” prosecutors and outlines their formal mandates. Concentrating on the pre-trial phase, this chapter examines the ways in which these prosecutors prepared indictments by selecting charges and naming those accused of committing mass atrocity. It argues that the indictments shielded the tribunal’s founders’ misconduct from the glare of international criminal justice, producing a form of victor’s justice. Since these indictments also drew attention to two discredited utopian movements, Nazism and Shinto-Imperialism, the prosecutors are best understood as politico-legal actors at once vital to the trial process, but also serving in the interests of those who established the tribunals.

International Military Tribunals

Rogers focuses on the underlying material conditions as well as the more obvious circumstances that gave rise to the international military tribunals established in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. This chapter argues that both tribunals helped to legitimise the new status quo in international affairs. By considering the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials in the context of US-led efforts to promote neo-capitalism abroad, this chapter argues that these prosecutions of mass atrocity marked the beginning of a politico-cultural civil war fought by proponents of economic liberalisation for control over the modernist project.

Indictment of Yugoslav and Rwandan Troublemakers

After introducing the men and women who served as prosecutors at the ad-hoc tribunals and outlining their formal prosecutorial mandates, Rogers examines the various ways in which this second generation of prosecutors selected the accused and identified the relevant charges. This chapter argues that these prosecutors breathed life into their mandates through their actions, yet each did so largely in accordance with the wishes of their politico-strategic masters, the P-5. Rogers explains that when these prosecutors drew attention to the discredited utopian movements of Christo-Slavism and Hutu supremacy, they unveiled themselves as politico-legal actors who are deeply complicit with the values and interests of those who established the tribunals.

Extraditing Kim Dotcom: a case for reforming New Zealand's intelligence community?

Recent disclosures of information concerning the internal workings of New Zealand intelligence agencies offer fertile ground for scholarship reassessing New Zealands security arrangements. Building upon only a few of these disclosures, this article argues that when the Government Communications Security Bureau decided to assist the New Zealand police with its extradition of Kim Dotcom to the United States it stimulated a flurry of media interest which not only signalled the widespread confusion among the intelligence community over the meaning of national security but also revealed systemic deformities within the intelligence community itself. The article concludes that this confusion over national security and those systemic deformities constitute a prima facie case for reforming New Zealands intelligence community, though the prospects for an immediate transformation remain dim.