UK
Candidate
for ICC Judge
Runs on ICTY
Record
Alongside Lamp
Chop Diplomacy
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 9 --
With the
election of
six new
International
Criminal Court
judges set to
begin on
December 12
the timeliness
of
the issues at
stake and the
banality and
constaints of
the electoral
campaigns
could be
exemplified by
any number of
candidate: but
this
mini portrait
focuses on the
British
candidate
Howard
Morrison.
For
weeks Inner
City Press has
seen Morrison
campaigning,
at receptions
and on the
margins of the
International
Law Committee
and
International
Court of
Justice
elections in
the General
Assembly.
Finally on
December 9
Morrison sat
down for an
interview,
accompanied by
a diplomat
from
the UK
mission.
The
interview took
place a
canape's throw
from the
concluding
speech and
reception of
the
Philippines
candidate,
Miriam
Defensor-Santiago,
complete with
crab cakes and
lamb chops.
Morrison
looked tired.
The process
could
be better
designed,
Morrison said
several times.
Morrison
said that
while the ICC
deals with
human rights,
it is a senior
criminal court
and the judges
selected
should be
ready to work
from Day One.
He
emphasized his
experience
prosecuting or
defending some
3000 cases,
being a judge
in the
Birmingham
Crown Court
and since 2009
at the
International
Criminal
Tribunal for
the Former
Yugoslavia.
He
said that even
as a recorder,
a part time
judge in the
UK, he was
authorized to
try
rape cases. He
went to the
"prep-comm" of
the ICC in
2000
to lobby for
the
proposition
that defense
lawyers should
be an
organic part
of the ICC. He
got "sucked
in," he told
Inner
City Press,
and is now
running for a
ICC judgeship.
He
faces more
opponents,
from both
Africa and the
Western
European and
Other Group
for a mere two
seats than
does Miriam
Defensor-Santiago,
who faces a
single
opponent from
Cyprus for the
Asian group
seat.
The
Cypriot
candidate was
ruled
"unqualified"
by an NGO
convened
panel,
though some
knowledgeable
sources
question that
rating since
the
candidate is
well versed in
family law
including
abuse and
other
quasi-criminal
matters. Inner
City Press
asked Morrison
about the
panel but he
declined to
speak about
its findings
or other
candidates.
To
be fair, Inner
City Press
asked Morrison
about a
critique of
his work on
the ICTY,
that he was
involved as a
defense
attorney for
some of the
witnesses
in the trial
he now sit on.
He said that
the ICTY's
trials have
many
of the same
witnesses, so
some overlap
is inevitable,
and that no
one
ever brought a
recusal
motion.
Howard
Morrison,
dogged
campaign amid
lamb chops not
shown
Morrison
did not
say,
but Inner City
Press will,
that the
process for
election ICC
judges
does not seem
designed to
choose the
best
candidates. As
Inner City
Press exclusively
reported in
late October,
France offered
to support
a candidate
found to be
unqualified if
his country
would support
the
French
candidate
Bruno Cathala.
On
December 8
Inner City
Press learned
from the
country of the
unqualified
candidate that
the one
certainty is
that they will
vote for
France's
Cathala,
performing
their part of
the exposed
but still in
place
deal. Click
here for that,
and watch this
site.
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