Dick Cheney should -- and eventually will -- be tried as a war criminal: former International Court judge

The world’s most distinguished expert in international human rights law believes Dick Cheney should – and eventually will – stand trial for war crimes.

Thomas Buergenthal, who served as a judge at the International Court of Justice for the first 10 years of this century, said he believes the former U.S. vice president could be brought before the International Criminal Court, reported Newsweek.

“Some of us have long thought that Cheney and a number of CIA agents who did what they did in those so-called black holes should appear before the ICC,” said Buergenthal, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp as a boy.

The 81-year-old was born in the former Czechoslovakia but is now a U.S. citizen and a professor of law at George Washington University.

“We (Americans) could have tried them ourselves,” Buergenthal said. “I voted for Obama, but I think he made a great mistake when he decided not to instigate legal proceedings against some of these people. I think – yes – that it will happen."

Buergenthal said he had no insight into whether former British Prime Minister Tony Blair might also face a war crimes tribunal for his role in the Iraq War, and he dismissed former President George W. Bush as insignificant.

“(Bush was) an ignorant person who wanted to show his mother he could do things his father couldn't,” Buergenthal said.

He said Richard Nixon – under whom Cheney served in the early 1970s – would never have been stupid enough to start a war with Iraq.

"(Nixon was) more intelligent,” Buergenthal said. “I don't think Nixon would have got involved in Iraq.”