Saif Arrested! (And Snarky Thoughts on His Dissertation)

CNN is reporting that Libyan rebels have arrested Saif Gaddafi, Muammar’s second-eldest son long thought to be his most likely successor. Saif is one of the three suspects for whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants; the allegations include persecution and murder as crimes against humanity.  And it appears that the OTP is already in negotiations with the rebels to turn Saif over to the Court:

The International Criminal Court will hold talks Monday with Libyan rebels on transferring Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, one of the two captured sons of embattled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, to its custody, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told CNN. Moreno-Ocampo said the younger Gadhafi’s arrest was “very important” for the war-crimes court, which issued a warrant for his arrest in June on charges of crimes against humanity. “We’ll discuss tomorrow the transition of authority, how to manage to surrender him,” Moreno-Ocampo said. Both Gadhafis are wanted for crimes against humanity in connection with their attempts to put down the emerging revolt against Gadhafi’s four-decade rule in February. The court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued a similar warrant for Abdullah al-Sanussi, the elder Gadhafi’s brother-in-law and Libya’s intelligence chief.

As many readers likely know, Saif completed a PhD in philosophy at the LSE.  His dissertation — which was almost certainly plagiarized — was a passionate defense of the role that civil society and international organizations play in the promotion of democracy and human rights.

P.S. You can find a PDF of Saif’s dissertation, entitled “The Role of Civil Society in the Democratisation of Global Governance Institutions: From Soft Power to Collective Decision Making,” here.

P.P.S. In case you’re wondering, the dissertation does indeed discuss — albeit briefly — the ICC (pp. 383-84):

The campaign to set up the International Criminal Court to prosecute crimes against humanity involved NGOs’ organising international conferences and meetings, supporting Southern CSOs and State participation in the process through funding and information dissemination, and lobbying throughout many countries, including lobbying US Congress and the EU Parliament. The result was the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 17 July 1998, ratified by 120 states and finally coming into force on 1 July 2002. The international system would not have been sufficiently equipped to bring to justice those, such as Slobodan Milosevic, responsible for human atrocities, without this success on the part of NGOs.

I’m guessing those NGOs — he singles out the Coalition for the International Criminal Court elsewhere — are off Saif’s Christmas card list.