The Hague

The final leg of the EU tour took the DAL students to The Hague in Holland. Straight after NATO, we drove 2 hours outside Belgium for a meeting at the diplomatic training academy known as the Clingendael Institute.  The concluding day consisted of visiting the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice.

Talks at this institution differed from others we have heard as these presentations were given by academics of diplomacy rather than government officials. Presentations offered views on ‘East Asia in the 21^st Century’, a topic of great interest to me. An introduction was made by Director of the Institute, Jan Melissen, who is well known in public diplomacy.

Ingrid d’Hooghe discussed expectations of China, predicting that China will become a superpower by 2025 in par with the United States. China’s new assertiveness in international relations is causing difficulties for international policy-makers. She suggested also that by 2020 China may collapse as a response to nationalistic regime, irresponsible stakeholders, or corruption. However the question on when to sacrifice ideology for power was raised during the session. Our lecturer Abdel-ilah Bennis made a great point that it was due to the arrogance of Western political and economical ideology that led to China’s rise.

With the example of Japan, Maaike Okano-HeijmansFrans-Paul van der Putten illustrated how economic diplomacy is the ‘Asian way of doing things’. The involvement of government in commercial activity is common and it is through investment and trade that Japan communicates with neighbouring countries. spoke broadly on international security in Asia from discussing Chinese sales of weapons to the threat of a nuclear weapon war posed by Western nations.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was particularly stimulating as we had the chance to observe a hearing presented by a secret witness on the Katanga Case. Unlike the International Court of Justice (also known as the ‘Peace Palace’), the ICC is an independent judicial court that has no association to the United Nations. The ICC acts as the last resort in investigating cases and only deals with grave crimes like genocide which may be referred by the UN Security Council. The objective of the court is to establish the truth by investigating incriminating evidence in exonerating circumstances. If there are reasonable grounds to believe a person has committed a crime after the investigation, a national arrest can be warranted.

After these visits, a few of us took the chance to travel to Amsterdam to enjoy the vibrancy offered by the capital city.