Charles Taylor Defence

After an emotional farewell party from the Hague There was only one thing I could do... not leave. That's right, after all the good bye hugs and and "keep in touches" I'm back in the Hague. My Hague, Your Hague. The place where you come as strangers, but leave as friends. (this is the motto of the Hague, a motto I feel may hypthetically have been stolen from a Victoria Bitter ad from the 1970s).

Seriously, put on your terri-toweling hat and state of origin silk shorts with the slit up the side and sing along here. The best cold Hague is My Hague. Your Hague. Den Hague. Matter of fact, I got it now!

Aaaaaanyway...

I'm working for three months with the Defence team on the case against Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, who is accused of committing a magnitude of crimes against humanity in relation to the confict in Sierra Leone.
It's an amazing case to be involved in. There is a lot of emotion surrounding the need to convict Charles Taylor and a certain amount of assumed guilt. It's challenging to maintain a open mind in the midst of all this apparent truth. With the world's two major international tribunals, the ICTY (Yugoslavia) and ICTR (Rwanda), coming to a close, with the Cambodian tribunal on the verge of disbanding prematurely, and with the ICC not really up and running yet, International Criminal Law is in a precarious position. Furthermore, with what is seen by most as the utter failure of the Milosevic case (by failure, it is meant that a three year trial of what many regarded as one of the world's most flagrant war criminals failed to produce a transparant, fair and conclusive judgement, one which would enable international criminal law to permanently notch itself into the pages of human history as a respected norm) the Charles Taylor case presents what many believe to be a "second chance" for International Criminal Law to set the records straight. It's going to be an interesting 3 months.