Up close in Hague's war court

Allegations of rape, torture, murder, and even genocide reach the International Criminal Court by referral from one of its 110 member countries or the UN Security Council. (Photos by Andrew Tarsy)

Andrew Tarsy lives in Boston. He recently served an appointment as a Visiting Professional in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

By Andrew Tarsy

Angelina Jolie’s visit in the spring to the International Criminal Court in The Hague was exciting. I know because I was visiting there too at the time. The Hollywood star spent her time watching trial testimony about child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and talking with members of the ICC staff. I was doing a two-month stint as a visiting professional in the office of ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Just being in The Hague, a Dutch city of 480,000 on the North Sea coast between Belgium and Germany, was an education. It is, like most of Holland, a bicycle city. I got one as soon as I arrived and rode it everywhere at all hours (headlights are mandatory but helmets nowhere to be found). The city’s treasures include canals, ornate palaces, magical urban forests, and beaches lined by Cape Cod-style dunes. And it’s so international. On the 12th floor at the ICC the staff was made up of people from the US, Vietnam, Latvia, Argentina, Guatemala, Spain, Uganda, China, Canada, Iraq, Germany, Mexico, Ireland, Japan, and Australia. (Oh, and the Netherlands, too.)

My opportunity in The Hague grew from the prosecutor’s relationship with the Brookline-based education nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves, where I had been working for the past year. The prosecutor wants to support wider adoption of educational models that might help prevent the 2 billion children in the world from winding up in his office as victims, witnesses, or even perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

The ICC is the world’s first permanent international criminal court. Allegations of rape, torture, murder, and even genocide reach it by referral from one of its 110 member countries or the UN Security Council. By design, the ICC only takes cases where no country is able or willing to prosecute. Its work begins and ends with seeking to have perpetrators of crimes held accountable to something approximating justice. Founded in Brookline in 1976, Facing History and Ourselves is an international leader in teacher professional development. Its original methods and materials have helped transform many classrooms in the Boston area, and throughout the US and the world. It envisions school as a place to impart not only knowledge of history but also the skills needed for critical thinking and a positive attitude about social responsibility and self-respect.

How do these two missions connect? This is where the prosecutor’s vision comes in. He wants governments and foundations to put serious resources behind the best practices of innovative education organizations, especially in conflict zones. It’s those 2 billion children again that he has in mind, and he mentions them frequently. The theory is that giving more of them access to high-quality education can be a key to preventing mass violence and crimes against humanity.

I share this ambition for education. But even after a successful trial, who can say what it takes to bring an entire society forward from a time of mass violence or to prevent backsliding? Calling education a violence prevention strategy puts an awful lot of pressure on teachers. How can they promise parents that it is safe for students to ask hard questions about the past? How do we know that learning about the horrors behind us can help prepare young people for the challenges ahead of them? Even if we answer these questions, reforming education is a process that works over multiple generations -- and it requires vast resources that most developing countries don’t have and most developed countries won’t spend.

These big questions hovered over the project and could sometimes overwhelm. Fortunately, I could draw inspiration from experts in the field. The Hague is home to hundreds of nongovernmental organizations. EURO-CLIO, for example, is a Europe-wide history teachers’ network. They brought history teachers together from throughout the former Yugoslavia to develop curriculum across overwhelming cultural boundaries. And the Anne Frank House, 30 miles away in Amsterdam, is not only where Anne hid, but is also an educational powerhouse. Its latest work is occurring in Guatemala. Students first read Anne’s diary together and then study the stories of their own families under violent, repressive regimes.

The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, which is home to Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring.''

On a break from learning about human rights education in Tanzania, East Timor, or the European Union, I could sit in the courtroom gallery and watch a trial; or I could chat with a judge in the cafeteria about why the United States has not joined the ICC (it has not and I think it should). Everyone is an expert on what the US has done or failed to do. It can be hard to imagine what the world looks like when you were not born and raised in a free and democratic superpower. The international arena has a strong allure because there is so much to learn and so much that needs doing. But that allure did not stop a broad smile from coming over my face when the customs officer at Boston’s Logan Airport stamped my passport a few weeks ago and said, “Welcome home.”

To blog for Passport, e-mail Lydia Rebac at lrebac@globe.com