OurPledge

No doubt, the International Criminal Court’s open case against Omar al-Bashir is a pivotal test for a new, fledgling system of international justice.

The likely issuance of an ICC arrest warrant against Bashir will challenge the deliberative conscience and the protective reflexes of the UN Security Council and individual countries. If Khartoum attempts to shutter humanitarian operations throughout Darfur in response to the warrant, then the international community must answer strength with strength. In the face of genocide, it must use all diplomatic and military means necessary to stop the slaughter in Western Sudan.

With so much at stake in the short term, it’s also important to remember the big picture. Fighting for justice in Sudan also means fighting for a better system of international justice — a system that’s simultaneously battle-ready and committed to some hard principles. MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton describes the desired endpoint as a “…a new era, one in which the discourse of human rights has become naturalized into political debate, accountability for war crimes and genocide threatens repressive regimes everywhere, and the international community has accepted its responsibility to defend civilians against atrocities allowed, or perpetrated, by their governments.”

Our fight is for a system that can end genocide once and for all.