US President Donald Trump closed an office at the State Department which investigated war crimes and prevention of genocide, as reported by The Foreign Policy.
The Office of Global Criminal Justice was established back in 1997 by the former US President Bill Clinton and it worked on the investigation of genocide in BiH and Rwanda.
The Office worked closely with international organizations and courts such as the International Court of Justice (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Besides the investigation of the genocide in BiH and Rwanda and finding war criminals, this office also helped the establishment of the Court of African Union in order to bring war criminals to justice, it investigated crimes committed in Syria, mediated in the peace process in Colombia etc.
Professor at the Northwestern University, David Scheffer, the first US war crimes ambassador who also worked on the lawsuit of BiH against Serbia for genocide, said for The Foreign Policy that this is “a very bad signal to the rest of the world, which shows that the US does not consider it as important to seek for responsibility for crimes that were committed.”
Rex Tillerson, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the US, said that the aim of the reorganization of the State Department is to focus more on US economic and military interests, and less on issues such as the respect for human rights.
The Foreign Policy stated that a major reorganization is taking place inside of the State Department with a focus on changing priorities”. Opponents of such a move of Trump’s administration, such as the director of the organization “Human Rights Watch” Richard Dicker, warned that this would greatly affect the efforts to bring all the war criminals to justice.
(Source: faktor.ba)
