Peace in Sudan won’t be found in a courtroom

• Last Updated: July 13. 2008 8:37PM UAE / July 13. 2008 4:37PM GMT

As the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague prepares to seek an indictment today against the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, it may appear to many that the wheels of justice are finally turning for Sudan and its blighted western region of Darfur. This is a comforting illusion that belies both the disturbing facts on the ground and the nature of international organisations and courts such as the ICC.

The proposed indictment appears as a Western-dominated international institution’s vainglorious solution to a complex problem. Mr Bashir’s prosecution would probably do more to hurt Darfuris then it would to help them. It could also further erode the authority of the ICC.

International courts have successfully indicted sitting national leaders in the past. Charges were brought against Liberia’s Charles Taylor in 2003 and against Slobodan Milosevic of the former Yugoslavia, who was the first sitting head of state to be indicted for war crimes in 1999. But in both cases, the men charged faced substantial internal political and military pressure to relinquish their power. Indeed, it was only after they had been overthrown that they were finally arrested – Milosevic one year after his indictment in 2000, and Mr Taylor in 2006.

Such a clean solution seems unlikely in Sudan. Mr Bashir’s government faces a tenuous peace with rebel groups in southern Sudan and a state of outright war with separatists in Darfur, who have made some startling military incursions in the past several months. Nevertheless, he faces few truly substantial military threats, and the Sudanese economy remains one of the fastest growing in Africa despite the persistent instability.

Faced with a charge from the international court, Mr Bashir is unlikely ever voluntarily to relinquish control of Sudan because as long he remains its head of state, he enjoys immunity from prosecution. By further isolating Sudan and Mr Bashir, the indictment risks jeopardising the flow of aid to the region and the already delicate humanitarian military operations run by the United Nations and the African Union.

Yesterday, the Sudanese government called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League, a body that has shown support for him in the past and will be unlikely to yield now in the face of an indictment from a toothless court.

But if Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, decides to press charges against Mr Bashir regardless of the reaction from the Arab League, the world will see yet another example of the worsening sclerosis that afflicts the world’s Western-dominated international organisations. Last week, China and Russia vetoed proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe after its president, Robert Mugabe, brazenly stole that country’s national elections. Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, yesterday called the veto “incomprehensible”, but he should not be so bewildered. As long as the likes of the ICC, the G8 and the Security Council continue to rely on outmoded Western conventions, emerging economies such as China, Russia, India and Brazil will continue to push back until they are met halfway.

Leaders such as Mr Bashir and Mr Mugabe respond to policies of engagement and negotiation – precisely the methods that brought peace to southern Sudan several years ago. There is little room for lofty sermonising in the world of realpolitik. The age of the invasive international institution – broadswords where there should be scalpels – may well be over. Few will mourn its passing.