Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s demand for a trial of former President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair at the International Criminal Court in Hague for fabricating the conditions to wage war on Iraq has given a fresh impetus to calls for bringing the two of them to book. His comments that the Iraq war has made the world more unstable, “than any other conflict in history” are not in doubt. Not only that, Tutu rightly warns that the Iraq adventure has thrown Middle East into chaos and has cast war clouds over Iran. Civilian deaths in Iraq, that he laments, are grounds enough for the law to take its course. It must be mentioned that the atrocities committed during the course of war — for instance in Falluja that witnessed broad daylight massacre of Iraqis — falls in the category of crimes against humanity. This rebuts the argument that a case cannot be initiated because the court does not have jurisdiction on “crimes of aggression” the way the Iraq war is regarded.
Law, both local and international, is applicable to these individuals in as much a degree as it is on anyone on the planet.