A hopeful moment: Sergio and Luis

Scott Malcomson, an editor at the New York Times Magazine, has just published Generation’s End, a vivid personal and political account of the period between 9/11 and the August 20, 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Malcomson worked briefly for Sergio Vieira de Mello when the Brazilian diplomat was UN high commissioner for ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Scott Malcomson, an editor at the New York Times Magazine, has just published Generation's End, a vivid personal and political account of the period between 9/11 and the August 20, 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Malcomson worked briefly for Sergio Vieira de Mello when the Brazilian diplomat was UN high commissioner for human rights, and he recounts a meeting in May 2003 between the charismatic Vieria de Mello and the newly-appointed International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Looking back, it's a poignant moment.

Scott Malcomson, an editor at the New York Times Magazine, has just published Generation’s End, a vivid personal and political account of the period between 9/11 and the August 20, 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Malcomson worked briefly for Sergio Vieira de Mello when the Brazilian diplomat was UN high commissioner for human rights, and he recounts a meeting in May 2003 between the charismatic Vieria de Mello and the newly-appointed International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Looking back, it’s a poignant moment.

Moreno-Ocampo indeed seemed new to his job; he acknowledged no obstacles yet, just areas of potential cooperation between his office and ours. Soon he would need to look at which cases to take on, a complicated task that we might help with by giving advice. The ICC also had two glaring weaknesses: no fact-gathering capacity and a lack of arrest power. The chance to help address those weaknesses, and the political questions involved in case selection, appealed deeply to Sergio’s particular brand of diplomatic athleticism. As the small group in the meeting celebrated with glasses of wine–something we almost never did–Sergio and Luis looked set to accomplish great things together.

Vieira de Mello died a few months later in the Baghdad bombing; Moreno-Ocampo, meanwhile, has struggled mightily as ICC prosecutor. He still has no convictions and most indictees are running free. The obstacles that seemed so superable at that moment now loom very large. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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