PARIS: The new International Criminal Court in The Hague, created to judge leaders suspected of large-scale human rights violations, took an important step in its short history Thursday as it began hearings in its first prosecution, that of a former Congolese warlord.

Thomas Lubanga [...] who once led a powerful and violent militia, has been charged with kidnapping children and turning them into killers in the eastern Ituri region of Congo. Many of the child soldiers were killed in the fighting, which claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Prosecutors said that, at the height of the Congolese conflict in 2003, as many as 30,000 children, both boys and girls, had been part of Lubanga's militia, serving as fighters, cooks, carriers and sex slaves. Some were said to be as young as 10 years old.

The hearings that began Thursday in The Hague and that are expected to last most of November, are not yet part of an official trial. Under the court's rules, prosecutors must first convince a panel of judges that they have sufficient evidence for their charges to merit a full trial. The defense can participate and contest the charges. If the case goes to trial, it will be the first occasion for the new global court to show whether it can deliver justice at a reasonable speed, and at reasonable expense, in keeping with the aims of its founders.

The court was created as a permanent institution to avoid the need for the ad hoc tribunals, like those for the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, which, for the past decade, have dealt with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Although the administration of President George W. Bush campaigned against the global court, 102 countries have now ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty that created the institution, which can deal with crimes that took place after July 2002.

Human rights groups that support the court have nevertheless criticized the charges against Lubanga, saying that the focus on child soldiers overlooks the many other grave crimes of his militia, such as ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape and mutilation.

"Recruiting children has been practiced in many places in Africa since the 1960s and many Congolese don't consider this as serious as the massacres and other atrocities," said Geraldine Mattioli of Human Rights Watch.

The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said in a recent interview in Paris that his office focused on child soldiers because it wanted to highlight the dramas of children's lives and had strong evidence to back its case. But investigations in Congo, including in the case of Lubanga, are continuing, he said.

To deal with criticism that the court is too far removed from the war's African victims, it will be possible to monitor briefings and proceedings via the court's Web sites and via video conferences.

The Court is paying the expenses of five Congolese reporters to attend the pretrial hearings this month.

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The Fifth Session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to which UNPO will attend, takes place from 23 November to 01 December 2006 in The Hague, the Netherlands. Read more.