The Special Tribunal for Lebanon Enters Its Second Year of Operations, but Challenges Loom
DEVELOPMENTS
Four years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 1664 requested its creation, and more than a year after its first plenary session, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is gearing up to face its most important challenge: the trial phase.
To date, the tribunal has released four key suspects (the only people held in custody in relation to the case) for lack of evidence sufficient to indict them, and entered into a number of agreements: most notably, a Lebanese deferment of jurisdiction over the Hariri case to the Netherlands-based tribunal. The tribunal is likely to face much tougher challenges in its second year, as it prepares for the possibility of issuing its first indictments, and fights criticism of its effectiveness.
BACKGROUND
The tribunal was officially established with an agreement between Lebanon and the U.N. on June 10, 2007. Its creation was mandated by the U.N. Security Council in response to the assassination on February 14, 2005 of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Hariri was a prominent Sunni leader and businessman as well as a driving force behind much of the reconstruction that followed the Lebanese civil war of 1975 to 1990. Hariri also was a prominent critic of Syria, which at the time had a strong military and intelligence presence in Lebanon. His murder was widely attributed to Syrian and Lebanese intelligence agencies, and sparked the Cedar Revolution – originally called the “intifada for independence” in Lebanon – that eventually resulted in the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country. His son, Saad, subsequently founded the March 14 anti-Syrian alliance, and was elected Prime Minister of Lebanon in 2009.
The STL is not the first hybrid international tribunal. Other hybrid international courts, such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Cambodian Courts, preceded it. Unlike its predecessors, however, the STL sits in the Netherlands, not in Lebanon, where the crimes were committed; it applies Lebanese substantive law, and does not blend domestic and international law; and it is the first international tribunal to exercise jurisdiction over terrorism as a discrete crime.
The tribunal has struggled to establish itself in its first year of existence. It has no major suspects, despite claims in 2005 by U.N. inspectors to have evidence against two high-ranking Syrian intelligence officers. Further, the recent release of four Lebanese generals held in custody has met with mixed reactions in Lebanon.
ANALYSIS
Lebanon’s political tilt toward Syria will only complicate the STL’s work in the near term. Despite his electoral victory, Saad Hariri was forced to form a unity government with Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian rivals who have accused the tribunal of bias and meddling in Lebanese internal affairs. Consequently, Hariri and leading Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt (whose father, Kamal Jumblatt, was also allegedly assassinated by the Syrian regime in 1977) have sought to mend fences with Syria, traveling to Damascus in contradiction to previous pledges. With June elections rapidly approaching, the integrity of Hariri’s coalition government is uncertain.
Hariri, perhaps because of his support for the tribunal, has been fairly moderate in his change of tone with Damascus and has mostly sought to establish a working relationship. Jumblatt, on the other hand, delivered a poignant apology to Assad and offered to “forgive and forget”. He made his statement on 14 March, symbolically timed to coincide with the anniversary of his former anti-Syrian alliance. Besides reinforcing his switching of sides, this statement could hardly have expressed stronger support for political expediency (in all fairness, perhaps survival) over pursuit of justice.
From a U.S. point of view, it could be argued, during the last year the tribunal has been an utter failure, insofar as it has been unable either to weaken the Syrian regime’s influence over Lebanon or strengthen the western-backed elements of the Lebanese government. The odds of achieving these goals, major reasons for U.S. support of the tribunal, appear as long as they ever have since the tribunal began its work. As the STL prepares for trial proceedings, its future success or failure remains an open question.
Victor Kotsev is an international political analyst and freelance journalist. He writes primarily about the Middle East and the Balkans, and has published also in Business Week, Open Democracy, Asia Times, Balkan Insight, and Transitions Online as well as in leading Bulgarian print media.