The Role of the Press in Establishing International Law : Gaddafi

Scenes of jubilant parading Libyans, firing their weapons into the sky, filled our TV screens and newspaper front pages yesterday, when it was announced that Muammar Gaddafi had been killed by Libyan forces 'loyal to the new regime.'

The images of Gaddafi's downfall were bloody (yes, literally). The fashion in which Gaddafi was killed was brutal; having been discovered and subsequently captured, he appears to have begged for his life before receiving a fatal bullet to the temple.

Upon seeing the pictures, my housemate exclaimed, 'this is terrible! The more people see these pictures, the more people will feel sympathy for Gaddafi - the press shouldn't release them.'

And feel sympathy they should.

Make no mistake, Gaddafi was an absolutist dictator who committed horrific mass atrocities against his own population, ruling with an iron fist. The empowered Libyan people rose up to overthrow him, and there is no doubt that by October 20, 2011, Gaddafi had long ago lost all legitimacy, or right to represent the Libyan people.

However, executing him on the spot without any criminal trial was a travesty and an affront to our commitment to justice and the rule of law. It was most feeble of Prime Minister David Cameron to argue that 'it is a matter for the new authorities in Libya to do what they believe is right with Gaddafi,' effectively passing the buck.

Can those who were personally and directly subjected to Gaddafi's iron fist really be expected to react in an objective, emotion-less way, taking the long-term consequences into account, upon capturing him? Yesterday's needless brutality, motivated by a $1 million bounty on the head of Gaddafi, appears to suggest that they cannot.

A court case is the only way to truly determine the extent of Gaddafi's personal responsibility, and to punish him accordingly. This option also provides a vehicle for the Libyan people to express their grievances, and is a crucial part of the healing process.

The Libyan legal system, previously controlled by Gaddafi, would have been completely inadequate in attempting to conduct such a trial. The Libyan National Transitional Council have been hard at work establishing a new legal system, but as Geoffrey Robertson points out, the court would be 'plainly unable to secure an unbiased legal process when he does fall into its hands.'

Gaddafi should have faced trial at the International Criminal Court, where an objective sentence would have been handed out, and a free, fair and unbiased court case could have been undertaken, much as it was for Radovan Karadzic.

Human rights abuses may, on some basic level, persist forever. Some may even argue such tendencies are grounded in human nature (though I would fervently disagree). However, we can minimize such events through the establishment of international legal norms, and to empower an institution with the mandate to prosecute suspected individuals. More importantly, their threat to bring said individual(s) to court must be credible, in order to temper the behaviour of human rights abusers for fear of punishment.

The only way to make this threat credible is to establish precedent. We cannot continue the age-old practice of Western powers removing one head of state, followed by fervent finger-crossing that his or her predecessor will simply 'behave better', accompanied by piecemeal and wholly reversible domestic structural reforms.

The world missed out on an incredible opportunity when a bullet was dispatched to the temple of Muammar Gaddafi yesterday. The press has a responsibility to showcase the images around the world - their shocking nature will hopefully make people think again about the wisdom of this 'shoot first, ask questions later' policy.