ADDRESS OF SIR JAMES R. MANCHAM DELIVERED AT THE 8TH CHIEF JUSTICES OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE IN LUCKNOW, INDIA

ADDRESS OF SIR JAMES R. MANCHAM  PRESIDENT OF THE GLOBAL PEACE COUNCIL, FOUNDING PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SEYCHELLES DELIVERED AT THE 8TH CHIEF JUSTICES OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE IN LUCKNOW, INDIA
Mr Chairman,
It in indeed a great pleasure and privilege for me to be in Lucknow today to participate in the 8th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World which has been specially convened by Mr Jagdish Gandhi, Founder and Manager of the world famous City Montessori School in the spirit of awakening planetary consciousness under the theme of “Empower the International Court of Justice to safeguard the future of the world's 2 billion children and generation yet to be born”.
Mr Chairman, this global symposium is in fact another attempt to give a voice to the voiceless within the framework of article 51 of the Constitution of the Republic of India which inter alia requires that the State shall endeavour to
a) promote international peace and security
b) maintain just honorable relations between nations
c) foster respect for international law and
d) encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration
Mr Chairman, we are living today in troublesome and worrying times. After the cold war we had envisaged an era of peace. At least so did many of us believe that this is what would happen after the demise of the Former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the balance of power which existed during the cold war disappeared when the United States of America emerged as the only super power in the world and we saw American unipolar status becoming increasingly questionable as conflicts and tensions prevailed in many parts of the world.
Mr Chairman, on 11th April 2002, the ratifications necessary for entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were deposited at the United Nations, opening the door to a new era in international justice. On this historic and long-awaited day, impunity was dealt a severe blow and the world took a giant step towards justice and accountability. At the time of adoption of the Rome Statute on 17th July 1998, few could have anticipated the rapid entry into force of this treaty representing every region of the world. 
On 6th May 2002, in an act which shocked governments around the world, the United States, the world only declared super power formally renounced its signature of the Rome Statute of the ICC, authorized on 31st December 2000 under former President Bill Clinton. Speaking on behalf of the Bush Administration, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman described the Rome Statute as a “flawed outcome” built on a “flawed foundation.” Mr Grossman outlined, in considerable detail, the objections of the United States towards the Rome Statute, claiming these reservations were serious enough for the US to withdraw its participation in the process.
While reaffirming the commitment of the United States to justice and international law, Grossman expressed the Bush administration's disapproval of the ICC by raising a variety of unwarranted fears about the Court and its functioning. These concerns have often been raised by the United States in the past, but a closer look at the provisions of the Rome Statute and the progressive development of international criminal law would render these fears baseless. 
One of United States' misconceptions is that the ICC would be an untamed animal, with unchecked prosecutorial power. In fact, the Assembly of States Parties, which is composed of many of the world's democracies and United States' allies, has the authority to oversee the work of the Court and to take action in the event of any suspicion of politically-motivated cases. In addition, the Security Council has the power to halt the prosecution or investigations of any case. Such order may be renewed indefinitely at one year intervals.
The Rome Statute contains built-in checks and balances and the treaty has strong mechanisms to ensure that the ICC is used as the court of last resort. An important principle enshrined in the ICC treaty is that of complementarity, which leaves State Parties with the jurisdiction to prosecute the crimes stipulated in the Statute. Only in the event that domestic judicial systems are not functioning, or national governments lack the political will to deal with such cases, will the ICC consider the matter. States Parties are required to enact implementation legislation, which may often involve positive reforms of existing domestic laws.  This will strengthen the national judicial systems as well as the international legal order.
Second, the US claims that the ICC would undermine the Security Council. The ICC is not solely a tool of the Security Council. The Security Council may however refer cases to the Court. The ICC is therefore an important resource for the Security Council in its mission to preserve international peace and security. The Security Council will no longer have to pass resolutions to establish ad hoc ex post facto tribunals, nor will there be unchecked impunity for commissions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Furthermore, the hallmark of a fair and effective justice system is its independence from political influence. The Security Council is essentially a political body. The world could have little faith in a justice system where the Security Council is the last word, given that its permanent members are also among the most powerful in the world, and inevitably, would seek to influence the Court accordingly.  Preservation of the independence of the Prosecutor is critical for maintaining a fair and impartial Court. So too, is the accountability of the Prosecutor whose decisions are subject to oversight by the judges.
Third, the US government argues that the ICC should not have jurisdiction over citizens of States who have not yet ratified the Rome Statute. However, the Court's jurisdiction arises from both the nationality and territory of States Parties. If a person allegedly commits a crime in another country, which is a State Party to the treaty, that country has the sovereign right to try the accused at whatever level it deems appropriate. The United States is not only refusing to support the Court claiming that the ICC is a threat to US sovereignty, but is instead attacking an institution set up by other Sovereign States.
Mr Chairman, it is interesting to note what Mr Justice Richard Goldstone who had served as Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa since 1994 and was recently appointed as the Chairperson of the International Task Force on terrorism by the International Bar Association had to say on the US refusal to support the International Criminal Court. 
“This stance by the US government is disappointing, and is in marked contrast to the long history of US cooperation with other nations in promoting the rule of law.  From the Nuremberg trials in 1945 to the current ad hoc tribunals, the United States' leadership in the development of international justice has been exemplary. US support of ad hoc tribunals and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is admirable. In my long experience with a wide variety of international and domestic justice mechanisms, I whole-heartedly support creative solutions to attain lasting peace. However, the US must keep in mind that the ICC is one of several important pillars in the growing global movement for international justice.
As the sole superpower in a volatile and dangerous world, it is in the best interest of the United States to provide much needed moral leadership in the world, by fostering international cooperation and efforts to strengthen global institutional mechanisms to combat terror, armed conflict and other threats to human security and peace. By distancing itself from the ICC, the United States is only further alienating itself from its key allies, especially in Europe and the Americas.
The ICC is not a threat to US sovereignty, but, in fact, represents the strengthening of the international justice system. It is my earnest hope that the United States will reconsider its actions to weaken or oppose the ICC, and will instead allow the Court to prove itself as a professional judicial institution. As the painstakingly meticulous work of the prosecutors at the ad hoc tribunals have shown, the highest judicial standards of transparent and fair trials can and must be met.
Ultimately, the ICC is a tribute to the millions of innocent men, women and children who lost their lives as victims of some of the worst human rights violations in past centuries. Given its legal safeguards, the built-in principle of complementarity and the support from the United Nations, governments and civil society organizations from every region in the world, the ICC is certain to be an effective tool to end impunity in the 21st century”. 
It is to be noted that among his many other achievements, Justice Richard Goldstone also served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 1994-1996.
Mr Chairman, over the last 10 years I have been an ardent pioneer and advocate for peace and for a better world order.  At the moment I am President of the Global Peace Council of the Universal Peace Federation which has its headquarters in New York. I am listed as an arbitrator with the World Intellectual Property Organization which is based in Geneva. I am a member of the Board of Advisors of the World Future Council which has its headquarters in Hamburg. Germany.  I am also a senior councilor with the European Council for Peace Developments in the Balkans which is headquartered in Belgrade, Serbia. These are some of the organizations with which I am associated in an endeavour to contribute my share towards a better world and I am sorry to say that some of my recent experiences can provide a picture of the sad state of the world today. Let me recall two of these experiences.
1) Some months ago I transited through Paris on the way to Seoul, Korea to attend a conference on peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. In order to get to Seoul on time for the conference I had to avail of an early flight of Air France. After checking out of my hotel I found out that the door man was finding it difficult to find a taxi for an American gentleman who was heading for Charles de Gaulle airport. When after 10 minutes a taxi turned up I asked the gentleman if he was going to Charles de Gaulle airport could I share the taxi and fare with him. He said that this was OK. Now as the taxi with both of us made for the airport, I thought it was time for me to introduce myself. I extended my hand and said “I am James” the American gentleman responded I am Jason and then he asked. “James, where are you heading for? I told him I was going to Seoul, Korea. He said “Seoul, Korea what are you going to do there”? I said that I was going to take part in a conference on peace. He said “James, don't you think you are wasting your time? There have been wars since the beginning of the world and there will always be wars”. I said “I agree there has been many wars but the next war could be a nuclear one”.  “I think James you've got a point” he said and then he added, “if you don't mind I would like to make a call to my boss in Washington”. Seated next to me as our taxi headed towards the airport, my friend openly and without any uneasiness, had a conversation with his boss concerning the amount of military lasers he had succeeded to sell at the exhibition of military warfares he had just attended in Paris.
So there, Mr Chairman, you see one man from some Indian Ocean islands going all the way to Korean peninsula to speak about peace  whilst another with surely a vested interest in wars and the perpetuations of conflicts traveling across the Atlantic to sell military equipment to third parties.
2) The second experience I want to share with you concerns an entry I made in the USA some months ago. I have a daughter and granddaughter living in Florida, USA. After addressing a summit of the World Association of Non-Government Organization in Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic, I thought, as I had a weekend before me, I should fly to Florida and spend it with them.
I am the holder of 2 passports  a Seychelles diplomatic passport and a British passport.  I decided that I would use the British passport as the British were collateral partners of the USA in the war against terror. However, when I got to Miami International airport I was ushered to the office of Home Security where after meticulously going through the pages of my passport, for more than 10 minutes,  the officer asked me. “Why do you have some many Arab stamps in your passport? I said, “What do you mean”? He pointed to one page with a Qatar visa  “What is this”? “This is a Qatar stamp Sir”. “And where is Qatar” he said.  “Qatar is where the US military has stationed more than one hundred thousand soldiers” I replied.  He then turned the next page and said “Can you explain this one?” I said “This is a complimentary visa which I was issued by the Government of Pakistan when I attended a Trade Exhibition some months ago. He said “So you have been there too?” I said, “Yes and so has President Bush. He said “What are these other stamps all over the place?” I said “This is the stamp of Dubai”. “Why do you have so many Dubai stamps in your passports” he asked.  I said “Sir, Emirates Airline fly to and from Seychelles almost on a daily basis. Dubai has become a convenient transit point for travellers to and from Seychelles”.  The Officer then kept me waiting for another 10 minutes whilst he continued to page my passport. Finally, he stamped it and said “OK you can go now”.
After I had cleared my luggage I realized that I had missed my flight to Tampa where my daughter and grand daughter had stood waiting in vain for the designated flight to arrive. A few weeks later before starting my speech at an international conference in Tokyo, I related this story to my audience. After delivering it the Former Indonesian President Wahid who is blind, and who was seated on the podium next to me, asked for the micro and turned to me stating. “James, thank your lucky star that your name is not Abdul or Ibrahim he declared to loud applause.
Ladies and Gentlemen, these two events by themselves illustrate certain strange conditions under which we are living in the so-called Global Village of today. 
Mr Chairman,  there is no better case to illustrate the need of an International Court of Justice more than the on-going plight of the citizens of Diego Garcia not far from Seychelles and Mauritius in the strategic western Indian Ocean.
As pressure for decolonization built up round the world, in 1960 the UN passed Declaration 1514 which held that all colonial peoples had an inalienable right to independence without conditions and that alien subjugation was a “denial of fundamental human rights…” Instead of decolonization Britain created the new colony of B.I.O.T (British Indian Ocean Territory) and took the Chagos archipelago away from Mauritius  all in order to transform Diego Garcia into one of the most important Military Air Force cum-Naval US base in the region. When the secret negotiation with the US started in 1964 the Americans wanted not only Diego Garcia but the surrounding islands cleared of any people.  “Sanitized” and “Swept” were the words the Americans used in documents released only recently under the Freedom of Information Act, to achieve one of the clearest cases of ethnic cleansing in recent colonial history.
Hundreds of pages of documents, most of them marked secret, showed that a former Governor of Seychelles was put in charge of “sanitising” the islands. He did such a great job of it. He summarily and forcibly evicted nearly 2000 persons from the islands and literally dumped them in Mauritius and some in Seychelles with only a suitcase each of their worldly possessions.
What is more he got rid of over 1000 dogs, pets of the Ilois or Chagossian  people, by gassing the whole lot as he preferred the ideal of a “complete sterilization in the islands.”
In order to avoid condemnation by the UN and others, Britain, supported by the US which could not care less what happened to the local population as long as they were dumped elsewhere, propagated the fiction that they were not permanent residents on the islands but “transient” workers employed as contract labour on the copra plantations. 
By doing so British politicians and officials lied and misled the UN. Moreover neither the British nor the US ever told the truth to the government and people of Mauritius that the Chagos Islands were removed to build a military facility on Diego Garcia.  They even lied to their own people. The secret deal entered into by Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the US was not known to the House of Commons or to Congress until about two decades later. Nor were they told about the virtual kidnapping of the islanders and their being dumped some 1000 miles away to live in poverty and destitution.
Article 7 of the statute of the International Criminal Court describes the “deportation of forcible transfer of population…..by expulsion or other   coercive acts” as a crime against humanity. Not only are Britain and the US guilty of such a crime, the British Government has also shown its sheer contempt for the rule of law. It resorted to that archaic, centuries old Royal Prerogative- the Order-in-Council- to undermine the decisions of three British courts that ruled the eviction of the Chagossians, who had lived on those islands for at least two generations and some for five or more, was unjust and illegal.
In May 2006 the High Court in London in its ruling said: “The suggestion that a minister can, through an order-in-council exile a whole population from a British Overseas Territory and claim that he is doing so for the peace, order and good government of the territory is repugnant.”
Even then the British Government would not relent and was determined to nullify court rulings. In May this year the Appeal Court struck down an appeal against the earlier verdict that allowed the Chagossians to return home. Now the government has gone to the highest court, the House of Lords which is expected to hear the case some time next year.
The so-called “lease” under which the US military base continues, is due to end in 2016 but could be extended for another 20 years. The US would not want to give it up because not only is it used as a base for air attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq (and Iran if war ever breaks out between them) but it is also said to be used as a detention centre for terror suspects as part of the US “rendition” process where torture of 'prisoners' is not unknown.
The lies have continued over the years. Governments have conspired to keep the truth from their own elected representatives and their people and indeed the world. This conspiracy of silence and deceit is one of the most shameful episodes in British and US history. Yet the UK and US and their representatives strike a holier than thou posture though they have poor credentials, as credible preachers of morality.
Mr Chairman, it is interesting to note that when B.I.O.T was being created India stood alongside the Former Soviet Union for a Policy styled “Indian Ocean  Zone of Peace” and very loudly condemned and objected to the American's arrival in the zone. However, a lot of waters have gone under the bridge of international political development and today India's Foreign Policy is relatively quiet on this issue as the US and Indian Navies engage themselves in joint naval and military exercises.
Early this year the President of China, H.E Hu Jintao spent 24 hours in Seychelles. Not a minute did he find the time to go fishing or swimming. It was all to do with Geopolitics. Commenting on this visit the editor of a famous Indian Daily said “The Indian establishment has for too long assumed that the Indian Ocean is India's Ocean  but the arrival of President Hu Jintao of China in Seychelles has certainly proved its delusion.”
Mr Chairman, in September 2007 I delivered an address on the theme of “American Leadership at a time of Global Crisis at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City  USA and this is how I concluded it.
“It is clear that the world today cannot do without United States but the United States also cannot do without the world. In this connection, it is important for the US to put its internal political house in order and then to move towards re-acquiring international recognition and respectability by e.g. once more supporting the concept and the needs of the ICC”. 
There is no doubt that few people today take seriously Francis Fukuyama's claims that history ended with the US led victory in the cold war.  Indeed there is no doubt that the abrupt rise of China in global politics had considerably curtailed the US freedom of choice in defining a foreign policy priority which she inherited upon the break of the Soviet Empire. 
I believe the United States is powerful and intellectually matured enough to accept past mistakes, and reflect and act on them in order to remain a strong power which is internationally recognized and respected.  To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore  the Nation's great promise and its original historical purpose.  It is time for the United States to acknowledge a painful truth that it cannot always impose military solutions to the world's problems.  The American moment is not over but it must be seized aneu. America cannot make the threats of this century alone and the world cannot meet them without America. 
In conclusion with respect to the problem of Deigo Garcia and the Chagossian people I would appeal to the Government of India which is now increasingly involved with the United States to use its influence in resolving the plight of the Chagossian people and the claims of Mauritius on the a sovereignty  issue in an equitable, fair, and just manner.   India can also use her influence with the United Kingdom, especially now that the Secretary General of the Commonwealth is an Indian to ensure that the United Kingdom also seek an equitable just and lasting solution to the BIOT issue  both with respect of the Chagossian people and the Government of the Republic of Mauritius.