INTERVIEWER: Many countries who have been through horrific or genocidal civil wars are now seeking to build an enduring peace. In the process of moving on, why look at the past at all.

MR. NEIL KRITZ: I think that there's fairly broad consensus now that in terms of personal human psychology, an individual emerging from massive trauma or abuse, if they're going to proceed to a healthy future, needs to in some way come to terms with and grapple with that painful past instead of simply trying to repress it. Societies in many ways arguably function the same way. They similarly need to come to terms with past abuses if they're going -- not going to have them come back in surprising ways and haunt their future.

INTERVIEWER: Is there now an international consensus on what the rule of law means?

KRITZ: There is an emerging consensus as to what the rule of law means for -- as it relates to domestic systems. That's an emerging and evolving divination. We know that at a minimum it entails an independent judiciary protection of basic core rights both with respect to criminal defense rights, for example, with respect to the rights of individuals and groups within society, accountability of government for actions taken, openness and transparency of government processes with citizens able to establish and assert their control of government. An independent bar needs to be a part of that process so that citizens can actually assert and uphold their rights. A legal consciousness has to exist so that people actually understand what their role is within society, what government's role is, what the role of civil society is as well. And all of these elements contribute at least in a general sense to establishing a culture of the rule of law. And the rule of law entails far more than simply ruling by law. It's -- you know, in the most repressive of societies whether you look at Nazi Germany, whether you look at other repressive societies, whether you look at the former Soviet Union even in its darkest periods, there was an attempt to have some kind of a veneer of legal process. But that's not what we're talking about when we refer to the rule of law. We would talk about a system and a code of rules by which the government -- not which the government uses as a tool to control, but by which the government is controlled.

INTERVIEWER: Is there any sense that this nation of rule of law creates a north/south divide; that it's western democracies bringing these notions to bear on countries that it may not be part of their principles?

KRITZ: I reject the notion that the principles of the rule of law as they're commonly understood are in any way a cultural -- form of cultural imperialism or are subject to notions of cultural relativity. Yes, they're are obviously differences between societies and between cultures with respect to various aspects. We deal, for example, on an ongoing basis with different legal traditions and legal systems between common law and civil law systems, for example. And when we create international institutions today, we need to find appropriate ways to meld and incorporate those various legal traditions. But the basic elements of the rule of law, the notion that individuals have rights within their society, that governments cannot rule by tyranny but need to be subject to basic democratic principles -- I don't think that the west or the east or the north or the south have a monopoly on those. I really do believe that those are basic universal principles.

INTERVIEWER: As an aside, as we go along if you want to cite examples, you know, for example, in Bosnia, what's happened in Rwanda.

KRITZ: Okay.

INTERVIEWER: That's helpful [inaudible].

KRITZ: Oh, okay. That's fine. I'll --

INTERVIEWER: How do you go about establishing these aspects of justice and impartial judiciary, etc., the elements that rule of law in societies that may not have had them before the conflict, in fact that they may have contributed to the outbreak of conflict in the first place.

KRITZ: Building the rule of law in any viable sense is a long term process, particularly if there was not much of a foundation beforehand. So you approach it on a step-by-step basis and whether you look at, for example, Rwanda which has made the basic societal decision that if a culture of impunity and violence is to be avoided in the future, the rule of law needs to be established, you're talking about building from the ground up. You're talking -- that involves legal education, training a corps and a next generation of judges, of lawyers, of students, of others, of government functionaries, of the military, of the police and security forces, all of whom need to understand basic principles. Your talking about establishing a viable civil society what will help all of this function because this can't simply be some kind of a government controlled effort.

In each case you look at appropriate instances that will give society a sense of empowerment. And when we look, for example, at questions of justice for past abuses or society in some way dealing with past abuses, one of the worst things, arguably that we can do, is to tell victims who have been given the sense repeatedly while being subjected to the worst abuses and atrocities, that they have no power over their own destiny and that they can never hope to do so. If you insist that all of those past abuses are simply going to be erased in history, you confirm that to the victims again. And instead you need to give a sense that they can play a role, an active role in shaping our society.

INTERVIEWER: Most people think of post-conflict rebuilding and -- primarily in physical terms -- schools, roads, infrastructure, jump starting the economy. What's to be gained through truth commissions and the like? I mean, how important are the psychological factors associated with the process of airing out the past?

KRITZ: I think it's essential for societies to air out, to deal with past abuses if there's going to be any kind of viable, post-conflict rebuilding process. Now, this has a couple of elements to it. For one thing, the rule of law needs to be established as a basic principle. And we're seeing this in all manifestations. The international financial institutions, the World Bank and others today, increasingly recognize that unless there's a focus on building a solid legal system, establishing basic principles of accountability and the rule of law, the development assistance won't work. Investors recognize that business opportunities are less secure if the rule of law doesn't exist. And you can see the strain in every facet of society building. When it comes to dealing with past abuses, if society of victims are going to feel -- number one that they're being taken seriously now, that they can let past resentments aside and number two, that there is a non-violent forum and vehicle for redress of grievances. That's going to be an important element in establishing a stable, peaceful transition. Otherwise the alternative is to tell people if you think it's important, if these issues continue to fester, these frustrations, then they have no recourse other than to take the law into their own hands. That's the exact opposite of what needs to be established in the transitional period. Whether from there there can be a question as to how society does that, society may do that through a process of prosecutions. Society may do that through the use of various forms of non-criminal sanctions. Any number of examples come to mind. In Bosnia, for example, in the post-conflict setting, in addition to those individuals who may be prosecuted in The Hague for their role in war crimes during the war, the Dayton Accords require that individuals who were engaged in abusive ethnic minorities -- a far broader category than those who committed war crimes -- are to be either prosecuted or at least dismissed or transferred from their positions. And one can look, for example, at the recreation of the police forces in Bosnia. Even if individuals who committed abuses are not prosecuted, for refugees to feel secure returning home to their village after the war, if the cop on the block is the same individual who engaged in rape of that refugee's daughter two years ago, or burning down of a house during a campaign of ethnic cleansing, then no one's going to feel secure. And even if that individual is not prosecuted, is not put in prison for the rest of his life, that individual can't remain as that police officer. And society needs to take a variety of different approaches: compensation of victims, recognition of their wounds and their trauma, use of truth commissions to at least establish basic account and a consensus account of what happened so that historical revisionists don't deny that atrocities took place, and steal one more time from the dignity of victims. Each of these are different approaches and societies need to determine which mix of them is most appropriate. But some form in all cases is, if society is going to be able to actually put its past to rest.

INTERVIEWER: There -- it sounds like something intensely personal and local in many ways with -- for those who experienced the conflict. I mean, what role is there for the international community to come in from the outside and be involved in this process.

KRITZ: The ideal I would argue in all cases is for the domestic society, the domestic community, to establish its own mechanisms, to deal with its own past in a credible way, and in that sense to have a sense of societal, national ownership of that process. When that's not possible, and in some societies it's not, either because crimes committed were so heinous that the international community needs to establish the principle that the international community will be concerned and has a stake involved in investigation, prosecution and punishment; or in those instances where a society is simply so incapacitated that it's incapable of dealing with these issues on its own. In those instances, the international community needs to take on that role.

So, for example, in the context of El Salvador, in the negotiation of the final accords during the civil war, there was a determination that Salvadoran society was so thoroughly polarized that although there was a need for a truth commission process, Salvadoran society could not do that for itself and the accords provided for an international truth commission comprised of members from outside of the country, comprised of a staff from outside of the country, to do this process for El Salvador.

In the case of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, again, the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed in both those cases were so horrendous, that the international community was obliged to step in and establish ad hoc international tribunals to establish the principles of accountability.

In other cases, there may be some mix. At a minimum, even when the domestic society takes on this process for itself, it will need significant assistance from the international community in terms of funding assistance, in terms of technical assistance and that may be in the form of training forensic specialists to exhume graves and to establish facts in a scientific way. That may be in the form of assistance in administrative matters even. But in each of these cases -- or legal technicians that may come and assist a process. In each of these instances, the international community is well-advised to be involved to help domestic society deal with these issues.

Where I would differ with some involved in this field, is a tendency sometimes to internationalize the response too quickly. And as I said, I think that the ideal is to help domestic society deal with these issues for itself so that there is a sense of domestic ownership and involvement and investment in this process. When the process is completely internationalized, it becomes too easy for extremists on any side of a conflict to distance themselves from that process, to dismiss that process as simply being foreigners who really don't understand what's at stake.

INTERVIEWER: Let me take a step back and -- like historically --

KRITZ: Let me ask you, by the way, if these are too long or if you want shorter answers.

INTERVIEWER: These are good. These are good. They may be a little long, but there's good stuff there, so -- Historically, we've seen a shift in the post-Cold War era towards more and more regional conflicts, wars between factions within a state, identity conflicts, however people want to call them. How has that shift effected the field of whatever we're going to call this: peace/justice reconciliation issues?

KRITZ: There has been a shift in recent decades in the very nature of conflict to the point where in recent years and decades, over 98 percent of major violent conflicts worldwide are not interstate but are intrastate, occur within a country -- civil wars. And with that change in the nature of conflict, the tools that need to be used to resolve and manage and build after such a conflict, need to change accordingly. And this is something that's received increasing attention. That also requires among other things in almost all cases a heightened attention to issues like the rule of law. You can look at any number of wars between countries that can easily be resolved without any modification to a domestic system of justice. Iran/Iraq for example -- they can resolve their differences without any internal changes. When you look at the nature of almost every internal conflict, you're talking about issues of power distribution, you're talking about issues of rights protection, you're talking about the ability of citizens or groups to have systems of early warning and redress so that issues can be resolved, whether it's a matter of frustration over the inability to have ethnic language teaching in a school or discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity or political grouping that leads to build-up of bigger frustrations. If future rounds of conflict are going to be avoided, these things require basic changes in the nature of society: protections, oversight, human rights protection mechanisms, properly functioning judicial systems, checks on governmental abuse on the indiscriminate use of power by bureaucrats for example and by politicians. By its very nature, these conflicts require a focus on the rule of law.

INTERVIEWER: Could describe how the mechanisms of dealing with a troubled past have evolved comparing, say, the blanket amnesties of South American -- some of the South American countries with some of the more nuanced versions in perhaps South Africa or elsewhere today?

KRITZ: One of the fascinating processes underway and one of the processes that we at the United States institute of peace have been engaged in trying to facilitate is one of learning from one case to the next and from one country to the next. Those lessons, both positive and negative that can shape the way, the issue of dealing with the past is addressed. So, for example, the way these issues were handled in Argentina, in the transition from authoritarian rule, had a direct impact on the way Chilean society approached these questions.

The way the issue of transitional justice and truth-telling and accountability was dealt with in El Salvador, similarly had a direct impact on the way that's playing out today in Guatemala. When South African society approached this question and looked around the world at a variety of different previous cases, one of the ones that resonated with them particularly was the Chilean experience. And that resulted in significant exchange back and forth between Chilean and South African individuals and organizations involved in this process. That happens on an ongoing basis.

The way Bosnian society is dealing with many of these issues today is building on that same process. Consideration underway, for example, by many in Bosnia today of the establishment of a truth in reconciliation commission process that will augment the work being done by the international criminal tribunal in The Hague, for example, would draw on the lessons and experiences of a number of different countries. But in each of these cases, adaptation is necessary.

To give you one other example, in Rwanda, if I can --

INTERVIEWER: Sure --

KRITZ: -- there is also a process of building and hopefully learning some positive lessons. Arguably, the process that was developed in South Africa is an improvement on its Latin American precedence, so whereas in Latin America, blanket anonymous amnesties meant that everyone engaged in prior abuses simply had their slates wiped clean without any notion of individual admission or accountability, has been changed in the South African model by a grant of amnesty but a price for that amnesty and specifically, if you want to qualify, the burden is placed on the individual perpetrator to have the courage to come forward on their own to apply for amnesty, to admit to exactly what their role was and they actually have to come forward and say, "Yes, I killed this individual. Yes, I burned his body to ashes. This is the date that I did it. This is who I participated with." And that becomes a part of the official record and a part of the official history of South Africa and only then will society grant that grace of amnesty.

In Rwanda, when they looked at questions of accountability after the genocide of 1994, amnesty was not an acceptable option after what happened there. Individuals who are accused of participating in the genocide can come forward on their own, can admit to their guilt, can participate in a confession program. They don't receive amnesty in exchange. What they do receive, however, is a significantly expedited processing of their case which might otherwise to come to trial and a significantly reduced penalty. An individual that under -- who under Rwanda law would be facing capital punishment for regular murder, for genocide may face as little as seven years of imprison -- of prison. The Rwandans, though, in part reacted to South Africa and so whereas in the South African model, individual applicants need only come forward and admit to what they did, and have that verified without any requirement of an expression of remorse. And in South Africa, we've seen a number of instances in which victims have been frustrated by perpetrators coming forward and brazenly bragging about their prior acts and receiving amnesty without any remorse. In the Rwandan model if individuals who are guilty of participation in the genocide are to receive the societal grace through confession, a confession is required to also include an apology to their victims so that society -- so that victims can more easily accept this notion of leniency, and so that this whole process can hopefully contribute more constructively to a process of reconciliation of society.

INTERVIEWER: How does this work practically in a country where close to a million people may have been killed? There are 130-some thousand in prisons. There's a handful of lawyers to deal with that and at some level, you know, many, many people participated either directly or indirectly in the genocide. How do they go about starting this process? Are they locked up right now both physically and mentally in the process of proceeding or how do you rate the Rwandan experience?

KRITZ: I give high marks to the efforts undertaken to date by Rwandan society to deal with the overwhelming devastation of the genocide. When up to a million people are slaughtered in the course of 100 days. And I think it's important to put Rwanda in some historical comparative context. The rate of killing in Rwanda during 1994 was at least three to four times the rate of killing of Jews in the Holocaust. But this was done through a low tech process, not through gas chambers but through one by one killing in most instances. The percentage of the population of Rwanda and the overall size of the population in Rwanda is close to the percentage of those killed during the Cambodian genocide. Yet in Cambodia that took place over a course of four years, and in Rwanda, the same percentage, the same numbers or nearly the same numbers were killed in only 100 days. With a society so devastated, the courage that has been shown by saying, "We're going to try to change the culture of this society. We're going to establish the rule of law. We're going to establish notions of accountability, so that genocide does not occur again here." I think is impressive. That is obviously an overwhelming challenge and I would suggest that the American legal system with all of our lawyers, with all of our resources, could not deal with the kind of situation that Rwanda's dealing with with no resources. In a situation in which most lawyers and judges and prosecutors were either victims of the genocide or among the perpetrators and are therefore out of the system, in which a system needs to be rebuilt from scratch. There is a slow, deliberate effort underway to establish accountability, both through the international criminal tribunal operating in [Arusha] which is prosecuting the senior most organizers and leaders of the genocide, and through a process of domestic trials as well as a confession program that encourages perpetrators to come forward and shift the burden in that sense from the state to the perpetrators to take upon themselves the role of coming forward and providing information and avoiding trial and steeper penalties in that way. It's a slow process, but I would suggest that some of the cases, for example -- when I was in Rwanda just a few weeks ago, and sat in --

MR. : We've got to change [inaudible] --

KRITZ: Oh, sorry.

MR. : If you could pick that story up.

KRITZ: Sure.

[END SIDE A, BEGIN SIDE B]

INTERVIEWER: You started when you were in Rwanda.

KRITZ: When I was in Rwanda a few weeks ago, and walked into one genocide trial on a random basis and saw an individual perpetrator accused of genocide in his village who was granted the fifth continuance of his case by a three-judge chamber specifically to try to respect the rights of the defendant. This taking place at the same time when many of those who perpetrated the genocide are still attempting to finish the job and particularly coming in from the northwest of the country, I would argue that most countries, the U.S. included, would not necessarily show as much deference to the rights of the defense. Prisoners have been told, "Don't confess. Don't cooperate. Because the rebels, in fact, are going to liberate us from the prisons." In a number of prisons that has already happened. And then we're going to complete the genocide. In that context, I think, Rwanda has shown real courage in attempting to hold the line on a process of justice.

Obviously, not everyone who participated in the genocide can be prosecuted. The numbers are simply overwhelming. But this will be an on-going process for Rwandan society to debate and discuss. There will no doubt be changes in new models from what they have adopted so far to try to finally come to terms with the genocide in a sufficient way. Penalties will be meted out as has already begun, and at some point, that Rwandan society will need to decide, they will reach the balance point in this justice process. The international community has an extremely vital role to play in this process.

INTERVIEWER: Why don't you start that sentence again, "The international community --

KRITZ: Thanks. The international community has an extremely vital role to play in this process both in terms of providing funding for the training of individuals, the training of a new justice system, prosecutors, judges, court clerks. You have a situation in Rwanda right now in which a court clerk is required to make a copy of a prisoner's case file and deliver it to prison at such time as a case is scheduled for trial so that the prisoner has an opportunity to study his case file and if he has -- he or she has an attorney, to study it with them. Except because you don't have court clerks who by western standards cost virtually nothing, that process doesn't take place and so the entire system comes to a -- crushing to a halt at the date of trial because, again, the defendant has not been able to exercise that right and a case needs to be delayed.

The international community has an important role to play in providing technical assistance and training assistance, in helping Rwandan society on all sides. That doesn't only mean helping in prosecution, that means finding defense lawyers who are willing to go Rwanda to ensure that those accused of genocide have a full defense. If the rule of law is really going to be established and if this is going to be something more than simple retribution, then those basic principles including the right to a defense need to be established clearly. And the international community needs to play a role in that regard as well. The international community, for that matter needs to continue a monitoring role in most post-conflict countries, including Rwanda, to help insure that things move along on the right track. The international community needs to be involved in providing materials. This may mean books, computers, pencils. When I was in Rwanda a few weeks ago, I talked to those involved in going out into the field on the part of the prosecutors' offices to establish full case files. And these are mobile groups. And the leaders of mobile groups said what we need most is to be able to go into a village and we need a folding table and folding chairs and a pen and a pencil so that victims and other witnesses have an opportunity to come forward and tell their story and so we can make that part of the file. Even down to that level, the international community needs to be attentive and make sure to -- have those resources available. This is going to be a long term process and in many cases, one of the most difficult things is insuring that the international community has the staying power to keep with it in a country devastated by war, by genocide so that after it's off the front pages of the newspapers, we can continue to help them to build month to month and year to year in this process.

INTERVIEWER: Are you able to talk about the status of efforts to create truth in reconciliation commission in Bosnia, or former Yugoslavia?

KRITZ: There have been several calls and endorsements by officials from all ethnic groups in Bosnia, in the post-war situation, including leading officials of war crimes commissions that have been established and are dominated by each of the ethnic parties, ethnic groups that were party to the conflict in Bosnia to establish a joint truth in reconciliation commission that will enable Bosnian society to -- sorry -- to establish a --

INTERVIEWER: Restart.

KRITZ: Start from the beginning?

INTERVIEWER: A sentence.

KRITZ: Okay. That was a long lead-in. Sorry.

There have been repeated calls by a variety of leading officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to establish a Bosnian-Herzegovina-wide truth in reconciliation commission that will establish a consensus history of abuses suffered by victims on all sides during the recent war there. This call has been made explicitly by leaders of war crimes commissions that were established and are dominated by the three respective ethnic groups that were party to the conflict there who have recognized that they are in the process of creating in a sense, three conflicting versions of truth in history with respect to victimization during this war.

At a meeting organized by the institute of peace, officials from these bodies said that if they continue along their present course, to quote them, fifty years from now their grand children will fight the next war over which version of that history of victimization is the correct one. And so each of the members of the collective presidency in Bosnia, religious leaders from all sides, opposition leaders, civil society leaders from a variety of different organizations, have said that they think it's an imperative to establish a process which would complement the process of the international criminal tribunal in The Hague to establish individual criminal accountability for abusers and perpetrators in this war, to establish a process by which Bosnian society can acknowledge the suffering on all sides, can in the same way that other societies have done previously create a vehicle for victims to tell their story and have that made a part of the official record, but one official record, not three, to as well introduce an innovation that many in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been very adamant about.

I talked previously about the process of one country building on another's experience. One innovation that has been promoted in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the notion that as part of the process of accounting for abuses suffered, for victimization during the war, for atrocities, the history of atrocities committed, part of that history, necessarily includes those individuals who resisted ethnic cleansing, those individuals of all ethnicities who risked their lives in many cases to protect neighbors across ethnic and religious lines. That will hopefully be part of the historical process in Bosnia, to make sure that those stories appear in the official history as well. Extremists and nationalists on all sides have a strong interest in making sure that those kinds of stories of individuals who maintained a sense of humanity, who were determined to resist the madness and the atrocities that occurred during this recent war, that those stories are buried. But it is arguably essential if Bosnian society is going to move forward in a positive and constructive and unified way, to make sure that without distorting the proportions because clearly these stories of heroic individuals would not be significant if they didn't occur in the context of horrible atrocities that most of society allowed to occur, but to make sure that all of history is recorded in a consensual -- consensus fashion, to give an opportunity for victims on each side to acknowledge each other's suffering, for perpetrators to come forward and talk about what they've done and clear their chests, to have a body composed of individuals who are credible across all ethnic lines of high moral standing, who are not viewed as political players, to facilitate this process for their society. This is going to be a difficult process, but there has been very significant support expressed, again, on all sides in Bosnia. And I'm hopeful that this is a process that will be moving forward and we will be doing what we can to try to assist them.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a military role -- for international military role, U.S. military or others? We see them involved in tracking alleged war criminals. Perhaps you can talk about an agenda for the U.S. military in this process whether it's that or helping create constabulary forces or [inaudible] --

KRITZ: Specifically in Bosnia or --

INTERVIEWER: No, more generally. Is that something that you've looked at that you can address? Our show deals with military issues primarily and if I can cite a relevant direction for the U.S. military here, it ties in.

KRITZ: Sure. Okay. There is an increasing recognition that if any of these processes are going to be effective whether you're talking about international criminal tribunals, whether you're talking about establishing the rule of law within society and enabling society to move forward on a more stable footing, that the international community including the U.S. needs to give careful attention to issues with respect to the security forces and to military roles within this process. That manifests itself in a couple of different ways. For one, if the rule of law's going to be established, there needs to be a clear division and a constriction in many cases of the role of the military in security forces within society. You can't have a police state. You can't having the Army calling the shots on the street in civilian society. And that requires training and that requires in many cases, military to military discussions and assistance with respect to the role of the military in a democratic society. It requires reforming police and other security forces to make sure that their role is properly understood and limited. It means in many cases, transforming them and purging them of past abusers. It means helping to reshape them and particularly the police forces in ways that will allow them to contribute to these new processes of establishing an independent judiciary for example of protecting citizens rights. In addition, when you talk in particular about international processes of criminal justice, no court -- a court in Cincinnati cannot hope to have any effectiveness if there are not marshals, if there is not a police function accompanying the court system to carry out orders, to carry out arrests, in some cases to seize evidence. Similarly, we can't hope to establish international mechanisms without the political will to take appropriate action of a police nature. And that inevitably involves in some cases, at least, use of military forces to carry out that function. If domestic authorities are not willing to arrest individuals who are indicted by an international tribunal, then it is arguably in many cases the appropriate role of an international force, an international peace keeping force, particularly present in that country to do so, and to do so in a way that contributes to the peace process. I think that it is easily established that in Bosnia, for example, the peace process and the ease with which international peace keeping forces can be withdrawn from Bosnia has a direct relationship to the need to remove from positions of influence and authority, those individuals guilty or accused of war crimes who have been indicted by the international criminal tribunal and who continue to command significant influence on the ground and to oppose and throw up obstacles to the peace process. And when those individuals are removed, it will become a safer environment and it will be easier for the military both to do its function and leave and that is repeated in other cases as well.

INTERVIEWER: Just summing up. I mean there will undoubtedly, unfortunately be a need for war crimes tribunals and truth commissions in the future, and you may have mentioned some of these in the process of talking, but very quickly are there lessons from experience that we can state simply so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel each time?

KRITZ: I do think that one of the important lessons that we have learned and that is increasingly being incorporated at the policy level is (a) that there is a need to recognize that societies have to adopt appropriate mechanisms to deal with past abuses if a peace process is to be a stable one. We have been witnessing arguably a paradigm shift, a sea change in the way this issue is approached. So, for example, whereas not that long ago, international negotiators would have consciously kept any issue of dealing with past abuses off the table and out of the negotiating room because those would be obstacles to any kind of a peace process, increasingly today there is a recognition that unless these issues are addressed and are addressed forthrightly in the context of a peace process that that peace is going to be a less stable and a less viable one. So, whether you look at the peace accords to end the civil war in El Salvador or the peace accords recently adopted to end the 35-year-long civil war in Guatemala, or the Dayton Accords to end the Bosnian War, or any number of other instances. In each of these cases, and one can argue and quibble as to how effective these mechanisms are, how seriously the international or domestic communities have taken their obligations to implement these provisions, but in each of these cases, there has been a recognition at the stage of negotiating the peace that these issues have to be incorporated into the peace process in an appropriate ways. I think we're also learning that the emphasis needs to be on building an effective domestic society that can deal with these issues with international assistance as necessary.

We're seeing this for example in the negotiations now underway to establish a permanent international criminal court which will replace and eliminate the need for the establishment of ad hoc tribunals such as we've established for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. Treaty negotiations that will take place in Rome this June will be an important step toward establishment of such a permanent international criminal court with jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But one of the key provisions of the draft statute of that permanent court recognizes and incorporates this principle that I'm referring to, namely that court will only intervene and will only have the authority to intervene when a domestic system is either unwilling or incapable of doing that job by itself. But where that's not the case, where domestic society can actually undertake this role, then it recognizes that the best role of the international community is to encourage and facilitate in that process so that these lessons can be incorporated and inculcated in domestic society.

Can I draw another line -- I know I should have --

INTERVIEWER: You're listing lessons. Yeah.

KRITZ: I don't know if this fits in here or earlier. Can I --

INTERVIEWER: Go ahead.

KRITZ: Okay. When undertaking domestic justice processes, one of the other important elements is that trials, for example, for war crimes, for major past abuses are high profile processes. They are a way of both involving and facilitating the interest of the international community in rebuilding domestic legal and justice systems as well as focusing domestic society on these processes. They become important teaching tools so that domestic society can understand in a way that they will never notice in simple commercial civil trials or in basic, you know, theft cases occurring on a daily basis in their courts. These will be high profile trials which will in most cases, rivet the attention of the domestic society, and will teach basic principles with respect to an independent judiciary, with respect to the rights to a defense, with respect to principles of justice, principles of accountability, the role of the courts and in some cases of other sectors which may be implicated in this process of trials. And in that sense, these trials also serve important functions in building a culture of the rule of law.

Other lessons that we have learned include the fact that we need to adopt arguably a holistic approach toward dealing with the past. There are more perpetrator-focused approaches and mechanisms and among these would be obviously trials. The use of non-criminal sanctions, purges of the police forces or of other sectors of those involved in past abuses. There are more victim-focused mechanisms as well. And those can't be forgotten. And those will include compensation of victims for their losses, restitution of property that they've lost during this process, medical, psychological treatment for those who have gone through horrific trauma in some cases, educational benefits for those who were denied the right to education because they were in a torture chamber during a previous period when they should have been getting their professional training, in some cases, exemption from military service for children of those killed for whom the notion of service in the military might be too difficult or too painful. They very from country to country, but a broad panoply. Memorializations -- the establishment of monuments to victims, the establishment of national days of remembrance. In the case of Rwanda, the ongoing mass reburials that take place so that people who are victims even if they can't be individually identified at least get some dignity in that sense. Each of these are different ways in which society needs to be attentive to the needs to be attentive to the needs of victims and to the recognition of their suffering and losses. There are as well those mechanisms that fall in between, and truth -- there are truth in reconciliation commissions are obviously often have both a perpetrator-focused and a victim-focused angle to them.

But in approaching these issues, all of these different mechanisms need to be taken into account, and need to be adapted for society, that society. We can't adopt a cookie cutter approach in which one size fits all because one size never will fit all. We can establish basic principles. We can establish training and information resources so that societies can better think through their options.

If I can, let me give one additional example of the way societies may or may not learn from one another. When the Institute of Peace was first starting this comparative approach to transitional justice, I posed the question to Raul Alfonsin, the first democratic president of Argentina after the rule of the junta there, and suggested that at least on the surface the parallels between Argentina and Greece were significant. In both cases, you had a military junta that ruled for approximately seven years which is relevant when society looks at its options as to whether there is anyone with clean hands who predates the period of abuse and therefore when considering who might be purged, you need to know who's in the wings to replace them. In both Argentina and Greece, you had a brutal authoritarian military regime driven by a strong anti-communist ideology. In both cases, the regime promised economic reform and improvement, but by the end of the seven year period, the economy was in a downturn. In both cases, you had extensive use of torture, increasing international isolation of the regime by the end of that period. In the case of Greece, ultimately the country being forced out of the council of Europe because of those human rights abuses. In both cases, you had the final straw being a failed military venture that facilitated the downfall of the regime, Cyprus and the Falklands respectively. In Greece, President Carmen [Leece] came in and very quickly and very strongly addressed each of these issues. There were trials of senior military members as well as lower level people for torture. There were purges of those in the government bureaucracy. There were -- there were approaches to dealing with issues of secret police files with personal information on victims and how society should deal with that kind of archive. And I asked President Alfonsin if that information was available or at useful as Argentina a few years later started to grapple with many of the same issues. His response which has been confirmed to me by his advisors, is that they had none of that information, that Argentina did need to pursue its own path, but that if they had that kind of information, it would have been extremely useful for them to use as a framework to at least think through the issues, to think through their options. And he encouraged us as a consequence to go forward and attempt to establish this basic information base so that societies can find which analogous situations best fit their own circumstances and can use those experiences of other countries to help them in their own debates and discussions and adaptations of mechanisms that will help their societies move forward. And that's a process that we're continuing to try to move forward on today.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Kritz, thank you very much.

KRITZ: Sure.

(End of Proceedings)