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International Criminal Law

• Aims to hold individuals accountable for offenses that attack the fabric of global society
• Explicitly enforced through trials by transnational judicial bodies

Historical Context and Examples

• Allied powers created the Nuremburg Tribunal in 1945 to try suspected Nazi war criminals
• The UN Security Council mandated International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 to prosecute perpetrators of genocides
• The UN and Sierra Leone established the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2002 to try offenders of the country's civil war
• 60 states had ratified and brought into force the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by 2002, extending jurisdiction worldwide

Implementation and Domestic Prosecutions

• Brought to bear through domestic prosecutions, state courts apply criminal statutes
• The Convention Against Torture (CAT) requires signatories to criminalize torture under domestic law, invoking national and international law when trying individuals

Restorative Justice

• Some legal scholars argue for restorative justice as essential to international criminal justice
• Restoration is closest to rehabilitation, adding a collective dimension to the classic foundations of criminal law
• Seeks transformation and healing of society, vindicating international criminal law through traditional and modern institutions
• Mechanisms in Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Burundi involve amnesty, social reintegration for offenders, reparations, empowerment for victims, truth-telling, and reconciliation

Alternative Justice Mechanisms

• Include the Acholi communal atonement ceremony in Uganda and ubushingantahe-traditional Burundian dispute resolution
• These are controversial
• They’re emphasized less than the retributive dimension, yet they still contribute toward national reconciliation commissions
• Greater confidence and prevention of social conflicts may result from this and address social issues more meaningfully

Focus of Chapter

• Centers on formally constituted international criminal courts created by international treaty or UN resolutions
• Examines amnesty, truth-telling, and remedial mechanisms
• Recognizes kinship between national reconciliation and international rule of law

International Crimes

• Defined by customary international law or international treaties
• Encompass piracy, human trafficking, terrorism, and torture
• Focus is on war crimes during armed conflict and brutality against communities (crimes against humanity)

War Crimes

• Violations of international humanitarian law
• Seek to regulate armed conflict through rules like the prohibition against military attacks on civilians

Crimes Against Humanity

• Includes large-scale human rights violations like genocide, apartheid, slavery, rape and torture
• They are inflicted wholesale

The Nuremberg Tribunal

• Established in 1945 by the London Agreement
• Treaty between France, the USSR, the UK, and the US to persecute major war criminals of the European Axis
• Twenty-one Nazi leaders tried
• Eleven received death sentences, seven received prison terms, and three were acquitted

Criticisms and Principles

• Manifestations of "victors' justice"
• Jurisprudential principles have included limitations on obeying orders and affirmation of nullen crimen sine lege
• Expressing fidelity to the principle of nullen crimen sine lege, asserting international law already forbade atrocities

Crimes within IMT Jurisdiction

Established by the London Agreement:

• Crimes against peace
• Crimes against humanity
• War crimes
• War crimes and crimes against humanity=the jus in bello
• Crimes against peace=the jus ad bellum
• The Nuremberg Tribunal was an international reckoning with the "final solution”
• The term genocide=not defined by treaty until the Genocide Convention in 1948

Nuremberg Statute (Article 6)

Included definitions of crimes within its juridiction.

• Crimes against peace encompassed "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties"
• War Crimes= "violations of the laws or customs of war, including murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor of civilian population. . . . killing of hostages, plunder, wanton destruction of cities "
• "Crimes against humanity, finally, meant “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and inhumane acts against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds."
• The crime of aggression is not defined until 2010 Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
• The war crimes definition in Article 6(b) of the Nuremberg Statute remains an effective content distillation of customary international humanitarian law.
• Nuremberg's enumeration of war crimes was elaborated upon by the 1949 and Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols described in Chapter 2

Crimes Against Humanity: Article 6(c)

• Broadened since 1945
• Essential understanding= attacks on a "civilian population" has endured, Nuremberg's reference to “inhumane acts committed . . . before or during the war" has gradually been eliminated
• Still defined as communities wholesale attacks
• Connection to armed conflict= no longer necessary
• Consensus states genocide and other crimes against humanity sometimes occur in in time of war and sometimes do not have to occur as such

Ad Hoc Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda

• Tribunals that address specific times and situations
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY, or Yugoslavia Tribunal) established in 1993 by UN Security Council Resolution 827
• Like the Nuremberg Tribunal, the jurisdiction of the ICTY is limited both temporally and geographically
• Prosecutes responsible persons of serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991
• Unlike the Nuremberg Tribunal and the ICC, both the ICTY and its Rwanda sister tribunal lack constitutional treaties, and are instead creatures of the Security Council

Chapter VII Security Council Resolutions

• Resolutions=primary sources of international law because of explicit terms in the UN Charter
• Ad hoc tribunals=distinct from other transnational criminal tribunals due to their unique institutional structure and powers

Yugoslav Tribunal

• Charged over 160 individuals
• Convicted 60 offenders of international law, including war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity
• The conflict is viewed to had both international and internal dimensions.
• The war crimes provisions of the ICTY Statute apply specifically to interstate conflicts. Also concerns grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and relating to violations of the Laws and Customs of War
• Definitions of war crimes draw in part from corresponding provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I of 1977
• Statue prohibits wanton destruction of cities and similar civilian population of war
• Genocide, modeled after the Genocide Convention, includes specific acts committed with intent to destroy an ethnic or radical group

ICTY and Armed Conflict

• Article 5: links crimes against humanity to armed conflict, but is broader
• Listings inhumane acts such as murder, torture, enslavement, but can also prosecute such crimes under armed conflict
• Includes both interstate and international conflict in its scope of wartime atrocities- deemed as war crimes or crimes against humanity

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

• ICTR, or Rwanda Tribunal created by UN Security Council in aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
• Occurred when there were between five hundred - one million killed Tutsi minority and alleged Hutu collaborators ultrasionalist Hutu militants.
• Tribunal mandated Individuals prosecuted "serious violations of international humanitarian law" commit in Rwanda and neighboring countries of 1994
• By November 2009, ICTR 30-one individuals had been convicted of genocide, other crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Six individuals were acquitted of same charges. Ten cases were pending appeal
• The Rwandan Tribunal in 1998*
• First international criminal secure a conviction for genocide
• Jean Kambanda, Rwanda's Prime Minister during the genocide of 1994 represented -two precedents as well,
• First genocide conviction against a former head of state and the first guilty plea in a genocide trial. Kambanda is currently being life sentence
• (2011), ICTR Woman guilty of war crimes in first trial

ICTR Statutes and war crimes

• Article sets forth an identical definition of Genocide to that of the ICTY Statutes
• However, the Rwanda focuses on violence of crimes against humanity and war crimes
• Because because violence Rwanda is characterized as war, the focus is on violations of Article 3, Common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol
• Crimes against Humanity before Rwanda were not limited to the contexts of armed conflict - murder, enslavement, torture, and other offenses when committed as a widespread systematic attack
• Rwanda definitatively got rid of war requirement of both Nuremberg and of Yugoslaw charts or crimes against humanity

The Special Court for Sierra Leone

• Upsurge of 70,000 belief people have to last their lives in civil Sierra Leone between 1991 and 1999:
• Government Sierra Leone/ insurgent Revoultionary UNited Front RUF signed peace agreement between Sierra Leone / RUF known Lome Peace etc
• UN security and government sierra in response in 2002 establish special court and special court to bear greatest responsibility serious violations of international international and Serra human 1999
• Ennactment following billet UN and Leione
• UN Security Council, in 2002, the parties enacted Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone includes structure/substansive crimes withing jurisdiction
• Thirteen individuals have been indicted by the SCSL, including five commanders of the RUF/ civil defense CDFs/four high members AFRCs
• Charles Taylor was under 13th Idct
• Of there defendants special the special court conicted 8
• Is unique for conviction from both insurgent and goverment affilated;
• A majority indedicted bby the ICC have been affiliated with rebel movements those found with rebels, those governments officials are not in ICC custody

Special Court Unique Aspects

• UNs endorsed limits
• The court prosecution in high rank members
• Limited to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and certain law violation
• Did not include genecide lack of evidence

With regard to the statutes

• War crimes are referred mainly in of violation common/ additional
• Since internal grave breaches are not it jurisdiction
• Other other serious humanitarian
• Also can do wholesale/Rwandan tribunal is not and no context war
• empowered Try exploitatation
• 15 + if crimes alleged
• Treat the child with accountabilty
• Special help if coming before it

International Criminal Court

• The Rome of ICC was adopted in 1998 into force 2002
• Grave, which shock the consience of humanity
• Four groups genocide/aggression /crimes to humanity/war
• Although Aggresssion of 1998 it amendments made in 2010 and an acts against the United Nations Charter occupation violation
• Seperate separate defferrement till no later than 2017
• The Original of ICC

Genocide: Article 6/ tracks other definitions

7 Main parts

• 8 Comprehensive
• Breaches Geneva
• Violations
• Yugoslav/Rwanda
• Not inter vs inter
• Preconditions to exercise etc 1

Rome Statutes Impactful

• Can try crimes
• Accuse must be party
• State party refer
• Prio Motoe
• 2 factors • InAdmissiblity
• Keller agrues - sub rosa, recognition by statue may
• Can still be due to sufficient gravity.
• 3. Non prosecution, security council/double. Jeapory

Uganda War

• Controverisal, within Ciz society, not only due to no officers, but arrest. Non govs, distractions and social policy
• Gov, Uganda call for suspension. First objective will be to invesitgate.
• ICD of high court with domesticate

Juba

• Experience of SCL, so little funds;
• Rhetorically?
• The other, something...

Burundi

• DRC has had issues, conflict for yrs
• Millions died/internap/ mineres/. Factions have
• The government for ICC on APril

Conclusion

Was ICC Prosecutor