Dear Minister Straw,

In your public statements in recent months, you and the Prime Minister have placed great emphasis on the abuses Saddam Hussein committed against his own people as a justification for the military action taken against Iraq. But what is the U.K. government now doing to ensure justice and accountability for those terrible crimes?

The draft resolution being discussed by the United Nations Security Council provides a critical opportunity to advance the cause of justice for Saddam Hussein's victims. As president of the Security Council and a key partner for the United States in Iraq, the United Kingdom will play a central role in shaping the outcome of this debate. We welcome the United Kingdom's decision to make transitional justice the priority theme of its presidency and urge you to demonstrate this commitment during the forthcoming debate on Iraq.

The new resolution will be critical for mobilizing international support and assistance for the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq. But the current draft resolution makes no mention of justice for serious past human rights crimes.

Ensuring accountability for the past will be essential to restoring the rule of law in Iraq for the future. It would contribute to security in Iraq by dissuading people from taking the law into their own hands, and preventing former officials from undermining efforts to stabilize the country.

International assistance is desperately needed for the investigation and prosecution of past abuses, and the collection and preservation of evidence of those crimes.

It is a sad irony that the United States and United Kingdom should be investing such effort in investigating and documenting Saddam Hussein's production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons, but at the same time doing so little with regard to justice for his crimes against his own people.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has failed to take concrete steps to ensure those responsible receive fair trials before impartial and independent courts. While some recent efforts have been made, coalition forces initially failed to secure gravesites, resulting in the destruction of substantial evidence, and numerous documents were pilfered or destroyed by looting.

The surrender and capture of senior Iraqi officials - including the notorious 'Chemical' Ali, responsible for the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds - gives this issue growing urgency. The capture of Saddam Hussein himself would put the coalition under intense international and local pressure to bring him to justice.

It is vital that any justice or accountability process in Iraq have legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi people and international community as a whole. This is no time for "victors' justice" - or for a politically charged, wholly national Iraqi process.

The investigation and prosecution of crimes of this magnitude will be extremely complicated and difficult. Cases of this kind would test even the most established judicial system, let alone an Iraqi judiciary corrupted by years of international isolation and abuse of power. The Iraqi judiciary has little or no experience adjudicating criminal cases that last more than a few days, a far cry from the complexity of trials involving charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As you know, Security Council Resolution 1483 "affirm[ed] the need for accountability for crimes and atrocities committed by the previous Iraqi regime," but it failed to provide for any concrete steps toward this end.

As the Security Council considers arrangements for Iraq's transition, it cannot avoid this fundamental issue any longer. It should mandate the United Nations to consult with the Iraq Governing Council not only on Iraq's constitutional and political transition, but on the question of justice and accountability for past crimes.

As a first step, the Security Council should authorize the establishment of a group of experts to coordinate the collection and preservation of evidence and recommend the most appropriate justice mechanisms. The group of experts should be comprised of both Iraqis and internationals who have the legitimacy, credibility and diversity of experience for this task.

In his report to the Security Council in July, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Secretary-General's Special Representative in Iraq, said that he saw merit in such a proposal. A similar approach was taken by the Council in Resolution 780 of October 1992 in relation to the former Yugoslavia.

Time is of the essence. Unless the United Kingdom shows leadership on this issue, vital evidence risks being lost and perpetrators may escape the law. Countless Iraqi families will be left waiting for the truth about their loved ones and justice against those who took their lives.

We urge you to show leadership on this issue and ensure the Security Council lays the basis for international assistance in securing justice for past abuses in Iraq.

Yours sincerely,

Kenneth Roth
Executive Director