December 10, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Washington
In an effort to raise the profile of justice issues around the globe, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today awarded Kofi Annan, the former head of the United Nations, with a new prize for international justice.
The award provides Mr. Annan with $100,000 and enables him to select a charity to receive an additional $500,000.
“No one has done more to frame a vision of a just and secure world,” said Jonathan F. Fanton, the foundation’s president, in announcing the gift.
As secretary general of the United Nations, Mr. Annan helped form the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity when state judicial systems fail to act. The court’s first cases include investigating crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and northern Uganda.
In a speech to reporters in Washington, Mr. Fanton, who serves as an emeritus board member of Human Rights Watch, said that the world has made progress in recent years toward creating a global justice system. Regional and local human-rights courts have grown in number, more charities are helping to ferret out human-rights violations, and there is a greater acknowledgment of the need to protect civilians from abuses, he said.
“There is a new norm about the responsibility to act,” Mr. Fanton said. “The age of impunity is coming to an end.”
But he warned that governments need to do more to help the International Criminal Court enforce its arrest warrants and prosecute cases. In particular, he urged the United States, which has not ratified the treaty that established the court, to change its position and lend support to the tribunal. “We know there is so much more to do,” he said.
