Events

Thursday, March 26, 2009
2:30pm | Room 3041
Duke Law School

Student Organization for Legal Issues in the Middle East and North Africa (SOLIMENA): Draft Schedule

Looking Deeper: What Darfur Tells Us about Genocide, International Criminal Law and the Future of a Country

While the evocative image of Darfur – widespread displacement and killing in the middle of vast deserts in western Sudan – has captured attention throughout the U.S. and the world, advocacy campaigns and activist efforts have not always addressed the thornier questions Darfur poses regarding genocide, international criminal law and the future of Sudan.

On multiple occasions U.S. governmental officials have referred to Darfur as a genocide but did not view such a determination as requiring legal action. What does this mean for the doctrine of the "responsibility to protect"?

Sudan's government ordered the expulsion of aid agencies, and the United Nations warned of worsening humanitarian disaster in Darfur after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir March 4.

Bashir is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Darfur crisis. The United Nations estimates that since February 2003 as many as 300,000 people have died in Darfur, and up to 2.5 million people have been displaced. The warrant for Bashir is the ICC's first warrant for a sitting head of state. What does the ICC's action mean for the future of international criminal law?

Finally, following the negotiation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South in Sudan, the country will have parliamentary and presidential elections in 2009, to be followed by a referendum in 2011. What can Darfur tell us about the future of the country? And what principles should guide U.S. foreign policy in these tumultuous times?

This conference seeks to answer these, often unconsidered questions that Darfur provokes.