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Interview with Luis Moreno Ocampo
"We started to discuss how we can encourage young students to take ownership of their own education."
"The only thing I should do before I die is to try to transfer my experience to a young generation."
"The ICC is not just about the court activities. The ICC is about the rules, so states are committed to respect rules,"
"But there is disagreement on implementation because it requires restricting your powers and making efforts."
"Case studies force you to combine different normative systems and mind sets. [...] Specialization could kill knowledge."
"We need the rules of the German people. However, Germany has to understand that rules play different in other places and how to manage this."

Luis Moreno Ocampo, first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and patron of the Global Order Project, takes a minute to sit down and discuss challenges and opportunities for the current Global Order, a new generation of young people, his life after the ICC and different perceptions of law.

March 19, 2016

by Marilena Stegbauer from the Global Order Project Team Freiburg. This interview was conducted during the first Global Order Conference at University College Maastricht on June 11, 2015.

 

The conference is over. What is your impression?

 

I was very glad. I was very impressed with the idea to organize a college at Freiburg. I studied criminal law in Argentina, following German authors, they built a logic system, very precise, like mathematics. It helps you to organize your brain, but at the same time it is a little linear. What I learned being a lawyer, is that you are facing complexity you need to use your legal skills but you have to also understand the other dimension of the game. You have to respect the legal limits but understand other demands like efficiency. You have to know how to do it.

 

That is why interdisciplinary is so important, you have to learn how you combine the different aspects of the problems. It is like cooking: you could be an expert on potatoes, but to cook a good meal, it’s not enough, you need to combine potatoes, pork and know how to do it and that is art! And I think a college in Freiburg, particularly in Germany, could be a real transformation for the education in Germany. For me, it was fascinating because as a consequence of my Freiburg trip, I connected with Maastricht College [University College Maastricht] and we started to discuss how we can encourage young students to take ownership of their own education. We are living in a new world with new challenges. National states are combined with regional organizations like the European Union and new global institutions like the International Criminal Court. 

 

Is this the reason why you participate in the conference?

 

My feeling is [that] I had the privilege to be involved as the ICC’s chief prosecutor in the beginning of a new, really innovative legal design. The only thing I should do before I die is [to] try to transfer my experience to a young generation. My generation cannot grasp the new reality. You are sixty and you are a professor, a full professor, so you were successful with ideas you have, you don’t have to change them and that made you powerful. I should interact with my generation, but it would be very good if I could pass proper information to the new generation, hoping that they will learn how to invent something new, because the world is changing dramatically and I don’t think that we are understanding that.

 

You left the ICC three years ago and turned towards academia, working with students and getting involved in projects like this [Global Order Project].

 

I do three things at the same time. Because I am involved in academia, now I am teaching in the winter semester at Harvard. I am doing research because I am writing a book on the ICC, but also I like to keep one foot in the legal profession, because being a lawyer, for me is keeping in the cutting edge area. I am working on new laws against corruption, we can use judges in New York to manage a corruption conflict in Japan. I am trying to develop some companies to do software to improve compliance, to improve legal understanding, so I think software will be the future.

 

So this is what you are working on right now, are you not missing your role from the ICC?

 

I have a clear mission: to build the institution of the ICC and part of building an institution was to leaving the institution and supporting the new prosecutor. Having a new prosecutor [since June 2012, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda is in office] who is now in charge and respecting her and not affecting her job is an important part of my responsibility. I am trying to understand what was happening in my tenure and I am writing a book on that. I am trying to discuss global order, not just [the] ICC, but including how Security Council works, how the software manages the world today and also, as a lawyer in New York, trying to keep me involved in cutting edge issues.

 

Since April 2015, Palestine is a signatory of the Rome statute, could you imagine now that the ICC will take on a case?

 

But the impact is not just the fact that Palestine signed the treaty, [U.S. President Barack] Obama and [Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin] Netanyahu were talking for one hour about that, according to the New York Times. So, it is not about the case in court, because the ICC is not just about the court activities. [The] ICC is about the rules, so states are committed to respect rules, so Israel should perceive this Palestinian move as a way to change the dynamic in Israel. Because suddenly Palestine is committed to respect rules. If not, Palestine people could face [the] ICC. I am not sure if everyone will take advantage of the opportunity, probably we will lose the opportunity. But that’s it, it’s a great opportunity to transform an intractable problem.

 

As we were talking about justice and pragmatism here at the conference, could you illustrate what an example of justice means to you? Can you describe an example of what justice is for you?

 

I think the world is in agreement on what are the most serious crimes. But there is disagreement on implementation because implementation requires restricting your powers and make efforts. Look at what is happening at the moment in the U.S. with the black minorities. Now, suddenly, it brought up in different cities. People were thinking that discrimination was gone, but is not gone, it is there and then people had to fight again for that in a new way. So you have the old problems like civic rights of minorities, than you have the problem of how the U.S. should behave outside U.S. That is another big debate, including what is happening today with ISIS. So, there are old problems and new problems in the world today, that’s why, in some way [it is] such a fascinating world.

 

Do you think that Social Media could be an essential part of getting those issues more addressed, also involving young people to engage in fuelling this process of equality like now in the U.S.?

 

Social Media is transforming the world because there is much more communication now between people everywhere. An example is the mother in Baltimore slapping her boy to take him outside the riots. Her video was watched around the world. I was in Cairo those days and I was proposing to Libyan people: Look we should invent something similar. Imagine a group of women going to Libya to rescue the kids involved in the militia. So we can do that and then learn from each other, but then have to implement new solutions. That is what Social Media has to evolve [to], it is not just about telling us what happens, it is about giving us the tools to do more.

 

You are working much with students, what do you think is one of the most important characteristics, like the self-understanding, of our generation of students?

 

For me the more shocking thing is, you born global, no more Cold War, cell phones and internet are normal.  You are different. And also, I believe [that] the new generation feels as one global community. Young people are the same group like Black people are the same group or Spanish people are the same group, young people are no matter race or language, the same group. And that is new.

 

Today, you were talking a lot about “teaching reality” and we have also seen it in the case study which you have discussed today with us during the conference [The case of Philip Morris v Uruguay]¹, how do you think student’s study should be arranged to teach this “reality”?

 

The way to study reality is case studies. Because case studies force you to combine different normative systems and mind sets. Yes, to solve this issue you have to go back to the theoretical background and learn more about trade, but case studies show you how these different issues interlink. That is something we need to start. Specialization could kill knowledge.

 

If you could decide on your path again and rewind everything would you chose the same path again?

 

I am so lucky to (...), my professional life was amazing but I grew up in  Argentina under the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla from 1976- 1981. The commanders were killing people and I was there to be the prosecutor against the generals. That was my first case as a prosecutor. Than I was involved in military rebellions and dozens of big corruption cases. Then the ICC. If I have to think that I should start again, oh my God (...) [laughs], it’s tiring me, no (…) I am very happy that life was very nice.

 

We are right now working at UCF to get the first student magazine published and the motto is "for the first time”, so I was pondering upon what to ask you...

 

Oh, first time I was meeting Freiburg college students, that is a big deal for me because I believe Germany has an important role in the world. Germany is organised and people understand which rules to be followed and this is what the world needs, in fact. Germany has to understand, that applying the law outside Germany, is not like in Germany. The environment is different, and I don’t know if you know, you remember when I was there, in Freiburg², I was trying to see how to present these differences about how the law is applied in different countries.

 

I said: look in the subway in Berlin, you have no mechanical barriers, people can go and take the subway but everyone pay the tickets, you remember that? And I made a story that in my office was a German guy, who refused to take the subway in Brussels, because the ticket-office was closed. And then I said: Look, in New York or Buenos Aires with no mechanical barriers nobody would pay. So, in Germany, the rules are in the mind.

 

After my speech, one of your colleagues, one of the students, came to me and said: you are completely right about the difference between Germany and other countries, in fact, I spent two months in Argentina and, he said, I was in a train, going to a football stadium and the train station was one kilometre after the stadium, but the train was packed with fans of River Plate, the club, so what happened, was, when the train was crossing in front of the stadium, the fans took the emergency brake and they stopped the train in the middle of the railway, they forced the automatic doors open and they went down with the big flag, they had. They crossed the freeway, [hence] stopping the freeway. And I say, and what did you do? He said: I was fascinated, but I am German [laughs] and I was stuck in my seat [still laughs], watching his and then I went down in the one kilometre later, in the station!

 

That is something for me, which we need to understand: we need the rules of the German people, [however] Germany has to understand, that rules play different in other places and how to manage this. So that way, I believe, in particular Freiburg College students, are in the best place in Germany, and probably one of the most important countries for the world, in terms to improve the world. That’s why my first time in Freiburg was very important.

 

Thank you very much.

 

 

¹ Phillip Morris v Uruguay: The case started in 2010, when the multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International filed a complaint against Uruguay. The company complains that Uruguay's anti-smoking legislation devalues its cigarette trademarks and investments in the country and is suing Uruguay for compensation under the bilateral investment treaty between Switzerland and Uruguay (Philip Morris is headquartered in Lausanne). The treaty provides that disputes are settled by binding arbitration before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).Uruguay had received accolades from the WHO and from anti-smoking activists for its anti-smoking policies. For more information please visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay  (last accessed 01.03.2016).

 

² visit to Freiburg: In June 2013, Prof. Moreno Ocampo visited University College Freiburg and held the speech at the annual Erasmus prize for the Liberal Arts and Sciences and official inauguration ceremony of the College. The prize distinguishes research work that, in treatment of its topic, considers questions of epistemology and/or history of science in an exemplary manner. For more information please visit: https://www.ucf.unifreiburg.de/university_college_freiburg/events/erasmus_prize_ucf (last accessed 01.03.2016).

 

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