Geneva - The former prosecutor of criminal tribunals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia has backed a recent international arrest warrant against the president of Sudan, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The support from Louise Arbour comes despite the fact that aid groups have subsequently been kicked out of the country in retaliation for the warrant.

Arbour, who has also served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said international justice has made "irreversible" progress in recent years.

Last week, the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued a warrant for President Omar al Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges stem from actions by the military during the counterinsurgency in Darfur, in Sudan's west.

Following the decision, Sudan ordered the expulsion of 13 foreign aid organizations and closed three local ones, the UN said, creating real concerns for the future of over a million people in Darfur and other areas in need of humanitarian assistance.

Arbour, speaking with the Geneva-based Le Temps newspaper, said she "deplored" Khartoum's decision on the aid groups, but predicted that as international justice became accepted as the norm, reactions of this type would decrease.

The Quebecois former supreme court judge said politics should be further separated from international justice so that it had more legitimacy, though there were no questions about the international court's legality.

Those who could not defend themselves against the substance of the charges, she said, would invariably end up attacking the institution behind the warrant.

On the new United States administration, Arbour said there appeared to be a return to a legal environment which respected basic rights, but added there would need to be more focus on social rights following almost of decade of concern primarily for civil liberties. (dpa)