THE OPENING OF the trial of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, though the realisation of many an Iraqi?s dream, is a moment of some danger to the cause of human rights and honest justice. It is easy for those who have won a victory to put on trial those they have defeated; very difficult indeed to see how the defendants in such trials can expect a fair hearing. The Allies who defeated Nazi Germany faced just such a quandary in 1945, and it is welcome news that the judges in Saddam Hussein?s case have been given training, organised by British lawyers as it happens, which included a critical examination of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. It is to the credit of that tribunal that some of those accused, albeit lesser fry in the Nazi machinery of death, were acquitted. But no matter how scrupulously the cases were heard, the lingering impression was of a show trial designed to demonstrate to the world the extent of Nazi infamy rather than a trial of the issues based on the evidence before the court. The presumption of innocence was exceedingly hard to maintain, as it will be in the case of Saddam Hussein.

Nevertheless it is of crucial importance that the legal niceties be observed, and that the evidence used to convict the former Iraqi president should be sufficient to establish beyond reasonable doubt his personal moral and legal responsibility for the crimes with which he is charged. Some human- rights organisations have expressed misgivings on that score. Similarly the point may come, when conviction follows conviction as the series of trials unfolds, where it would no longer be reasonable or fair to take matters any further. Saddam Hussein is entitled to respect for his humanity even if he showed none for his victims; and it is by demonstrating that, that the Baghdad tribunal will ultimately establish its claim to legitimacy. If it becomes mere vindictive score settling at Saddam?s expense, the credibility of the tribunal, and by implication of the state it represents, will ...