The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was created in order to prosecute those responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Photo by Helene C. Stikkel.
In 2005, the government of Lebanon requested that the United Nations establish an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others that same year. In response, Security Council Resolution 1757 created the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and its governing statute in 2007. Unique among the UN-established international tribunals, the STL applies only Lebanese law rather than a hybrid of national and international criminal law or solely international criminal law. Despite the fact that its establishment was initially based upon the Lebanese government’s request, many in Lebanon, particularly within the Syrian-backed Hezbollah movement, oppose the STL and say that it is a foreign influence with too much power over the domestic judiciary. As a result, greater Hezbollah influence within the Lebanese government has raised concerns that the government will cease cooperating with the Tribunal.
In January 2011, as the STL prepared to issue its first sealed indictments, rumors surfaced that the indictments would implicate Lebanese Hezbollah members in the Hariri assassination. When Prime Minister Saad Hariri — the son of the late Hariri — refused to bow to pressure and withdraw support for the Tribunal, ten Hezbollah-affiliated ministers dramatically resigned from the government in protest, leading to a temporary governmental collapse and ousting Hariri from power.
In the aftermath, the new Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati has faced significant pressure from Hezbollah to rescind Lebanese political support for the STL. The new Lebanese government, dependent on the participation of its Hezbollah members, may seek to undermine STL’s legitimacy or deprive it of the 49 percent of funding for which the Lebanese government is responsible. The STL has no independent enforcement agency and relies on the Lebanese authorities for detention and jailing capabilities; thus, loss of government support could seriously impair the STL with lengthy execution of warrants or a failure to “find” suspects. While the STL was designed by the United Nations to function independently of Lebanese politics, the Tribunal may face significant operational and enforcement problems.
The STL is a bold experiment for the United Nations. Unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which were set up to investigate and prosecute entire classes of international crimes committed throughout a conflict, the STL’s mandate covers certain specific acts of “terrorism,” as defined in Lebanese domestic law. Further, in contrast to the ICTY and ICTR, which originally provided functional judicial authority where there arguably was none, the STL functions concordantly with a relatively established Lebanese judiciary. The STL was initially proposed because of concerns that the Lebanese court system would be unable to maintain political independence throughout such high-profile investigations.
In addition to concerns for redundancy with the domestic judicial system, the STL is criticized for its slow progress and alleged overspending. The STL only began operations in 2009 and submitted the first, sealed indictments in early 2011. Yet, without having begun trials, the STL has spent upwards of U.S. $70 million over just the past fiscal year. To compare, the International Criminal Court spent U.S. $149 million over the same time period on investigations and prosecutions in several situations around the world. The STL’s response, that these early investigation costs will be reduced in coming years, is disputed since the trial process, involving an unknown number of suspects, may be long and costly.
Despite the obstacles and political risk of continuing the STL, the United Nations and the STL have repeatedly indicated that Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen would begin unsealing the indictments or ordering Lebanon to arrest those indicted. For the STL to achieve its mandate of bringing justice to those behind the February 2005 assassinations, it must remain independent from Lebanese politics in conducting investigations and prosecutions. The United Nations has expressed a firm commitment to the STL, but where the future of the Lebanese government remains uncertain, so too does the viability of the STL.
