All week the public gallery of the International Criminal Court in The Hague has been as tightly packed as a commuter train. I was there to watch a warlord sweat: Charles Taylor, the former Liberian President, is the first African leader to be put in the dock for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most of the other seats though were taken by lawyers: they were watching a new legal order take shape.

Whatever the outcome, the trial will have set new standards for dealing with the abuse of power by leaders of sovereign states. The Special Court — jointly run by the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations — is creating a model that will go some way towards compensating for the messy trials of the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (who died before sentencing) and the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

First, though, one niggling suspicion has to be banished: that the trial has an unspoken racist agenda; that Charles Taylor is somehow standing in for all the corruption of Africa, for its tribal allegiances, its democratic uncertainties. "It is inappropriate to play the race card in this trial," said the chief prosecutor Stephen Rapp.

The defence team is trying to present the trial against Mr Taylor as a political tribunal. Like Milosevic and Saddam, the Liberian leader was targeted by President George W. Bush as a candidate for "regime change" — to set an example to Africa. Yet ultimately Mr Taylor resigned the presidency without a struggle, handing over constitutional power in an orderly fashion — unlike the white leaders of Rhodesia and South Africa who clung on for decades. That is how one strand of the Taylor defence is developing and it is not difficult to see where it is leading: Charles Taylor may be a baby-eating tyrant in the eyes of the Western media but in fact he is the African victim of white, victors’ justice.

So it as well to knock these claims on the head before the Special Court loses its credibility in the manner of the Iraqi High Tribunal, which conducted the Saddam Hussein hearings in the fortress community of Bagdad's Green Zone.

First, Sierra Leone is deeply involved in the Taylor trial; it supplies the administrators, some of the judges, even the police. The hearings are being held in The Hague — sandwiched between DIY supermarkets and used-car dealerships — not because this is white man's justice but because it is safer. A trial in Freetown would be overshadowed by security questions: Mr Taylor, after all, has already escaped once from a US jail.

Second, the Taylor trial — aimed at establishing whether he steered the Sierra Leone rebels from neighbouring Liberia with an eye on diamond riches — is about securing justice for African victims. There have already been macabre scenes in the courtroom; a witness with both hands amputated by the rebels was asked by the defence, with clunking insensitivity, whether he could read and write. The witness silently held up his stumps. Rape victims were asked to state precisely how many rebels had assaulted them. Day after day, the hearings have painted a picture of misery inflicted by greedy, butchering men. No racism there — only a sense of failed states and dysfunctional governments.

Third, President Obama, in his recent visit to Ghana, declared that Africa needed strong institutions rather than strongmen. Sadly, he left the continent before explaining how this could be achieved in desperately poor countries with a weak tradition of civil society. The Special Court shows one way forward: a genuine collaboration between an African state and the international community. The trial proceedings, broadcast back to West Africa, have become a pedagogic venture, demonstrating what went wrong. It is showing Africans at home that leaders can be stripped of the magic of kingship and be held accountable before a court of law.

The prosecution case is not foolproof. It must prove without shadow of a doubt that Mr Taylor exercised command and control over the rampaging rebels in Sierra Leone. To do so it needs witnesses that link Mr Taylor directly to the atrocities. The defence team will spend the next few weeks trying to undermine the testimony of these witnesses. And, at the end of it all, Charles Taylor may walk free, still young enough at the age of 61, to carry on playing the political game.

Even if he avoids jail Mr Taylor will not be returning to the old Africa, the 1990s playground of the warlords. The trial is already pumping up expectations of Africans who have started to demand more of their leaders and their institutions. Africa, too, is changing the West, making it accept responsibilities that go beyond aid budgets and Make Poverty History concerts.

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