A Poisoned Chalice: The Substantive and Procedural Defects of the Iraqi High Tribunal‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION On April 7, 1993, Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, announced that the Iraqi government would assume primary responsibility for prosecuting the innumerable war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide that Saddam Hussein committed during his three decades of bloody rule. (1) Human rights groups, who had hoped--and perhaps even expected--that Saddam would be tried by either an ad hoc or a hybrid international tribunal, immediately criticized the decision. Human Rights Watch, for example, argued that a domestic trial would be a mistake, noting that the Iraqi judiciary had been "deeply compromised" by years of Ba'ath Party rule and did not have the capacity to handle the complicated trials Saddam's crimes would require. (2) Amnesty International agreed, noting its long-standing concerns about Iraq's "widespread human rights violations relating to the criminal justice system." (3)