Criminal Tribunals

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Fichtelberg
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
The Impact

One the most dramatic development in international law in the 20th century was the formation of international criminal tribunals. Unlike conventional international tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, international criminal tribunals—such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg—are a controversial element of international law and international politics. Precisely because they are aimed at individuals who act under color of law, such as military officials or heads of state, they invoke a number of political challenges. Their combination of international law, human rights, criminal justice, and hotly disputed facts of great moral gravity makes them a subject of intense debate among academics, government officials, and the public at large. Much of the scholarship on international tribunals can be summed up by three periods: pre-Nuremberg, Nuremberg, and post-Cold War developments. Each period reveals shifts in the way that international criminal tribunals were studied and conceptualized in the academic world. In the future, much of the scholarship on international tribunals is expected to be influenced by the impact that the actual tribunals themselves have on international politics.

13. International criminal justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 287-315
Author(s):  
Nicole Scicluna
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter assesses whether international politics can be conducted in the courtroom. It begins with an analysis of the post-Second World War Nuremberg tribunal. While flawed in many ways, these proceedings marked a significant change in thinking about international crimes and individual responsibility. Though the onset of the Cold War prevented the translation of the Nuremberg legacy into more permanent, treaty-based international institutions, the ideas Nuremberg incubated were to have a lasting impact on international law. As in so many other areas of international law and international politics, the end of the Cold War was a watershed. The 1990s saw the revival of ad hoc international criminal tribunals, most notably the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The chapter then examines the International Criminal Court, which is, in many ways, the culmination of efforts to institutionalize international criminal justice.

How International Courts Shape Domestic Justice: Lessons from Rwanda and Sierra Leone

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigall Horovitz
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Judicial Proceedings ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
Justice Systems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) were created to deliver accountability for the atrocities committed during Rwanda's genocide of 1994 and Sierra Leone's civil war of the 1990s. The capacity of these courts, however, like other international criminal tribunals, is limited in terms of the number of persons they can prosecute. If most perpetrators evade justice, the ability of international tribunals to deliver accountability may be seriously undermined. To mitigate this risk, national justice systems should deal with the perpetrators who are not addressed by international tribunals. When national systems do not do so (or fail to do so effectively), international tribunals are well placed to encourage (or improve) national atrocity-related judicial proceedings, thereby increasing their chances of delivering accountability.This article assesses empirically the impact of the ICTR and SCSL on national atrocity-related judicial proceedings in their target countries, thus contributing to an overall assessment of these tribunals. The article also compares the national impact of the ‘pure international’ ICTR to that of the ‘hybrid’ SCSL and tries to identify features that affect the national impact of an international tribunal. Understanding the interactions between international and national justice systems, and the features that affect the national impact of international tribunals, is particularly important given the shift to ‘positive complementarity’ at the International Criminal Court.

Contemporary International Tribunals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antônio Augusto ◽  
Cançado Trindade
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
International Human ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
Cross Fertilization

More recently, jurisprudential cross-fertilization has kept on being pursued in particular by international human rights tribunals and international criminal tribunals. This is reassuring, as, despite their distinct jurisdictions, their work is complementary, in their common mission of imparting justice, in distinct domains of international law. Jurisprudential cross-fertilization fosters cohesion and the unity of law. Particularly attention is currently devoted to the preservation of the legacy of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals.

Improving the Operation and Functioning of the International Criminal Tribunals

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl A. Mundis
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Expert Group ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
The United Nations

Since the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, both International Tribunals have grown tremendously in terms of resources. Despite this growth, the International Tribunals have rendered judgments in only fifteen cases and conducted inordinately long trials—a fault for which, perhaps more than any other, they can be justly criticized. The Secretary- General of the United Nations recently appointed an expert group to review the efficiency of the operation of the International Tribunals and make recommendations for improvement. Following the release of the group's report, the General Assembly requested that the Secretary-General obtain comments from the International Tribunals on the experts’ recommendations. The ICTYjudges, for their part, considered these recommendations in a report to the United Nations setting forth a long-term strategy for improving the operation of the Tribunal.

s.I Actors, Ch.3 Neither Here nor There: The Position of the Defence in International Criminal Tribunals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobs Dov
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Trial Process ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Different Types ◽  
International Tribunals

This chapter argues that international tribunals minimize the need to accurately determine the defendant’s guilt by routinely ‘balancing away’ defence rights vis-à-vis other values that are deemed more important, such as ‘combating impunity’ or acknowledging the suffering of the victims. It identifies four different types of such balancing: foundational, procedural, institutional, and systemic. Foundational balancing concerns the (mis)use of the sources of international law. Procedural balancing primarily involves de-emphasizing the importance of defence rights by elevating the (assumed) rights of other actors in the system. Institutional balancing relates to the structural position of the defence at international tribunals. And systemic balancing focuses on how the collective nature of international crimes requires international tribunals to rely on substantive doctrines that make it more difficult to accurately assess the criminal responsibility of individual defendants. Those four types of balancing, this chapter suggests, relegate defendants to the margins of the trial process, significantly increasing the likelihood of unjust verdicts.

Measuring the impact of punishment and forgiveness: a framework for evaluating transitional justice

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (861) ◽  
pp. 19-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Hazan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Community ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Impact

Truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, reparations, public apologies and other mechanisms of transitional justice are the new mantras of the post-cold-war era. Their purpose is to foster reconciliation in societies that have experienced widespread human-rights violations and to promote reform and democracy, the ultimate aim being to defuse tension. But to what degree are these mechanisms, which are financially and politically supported by the international community and NGOs, truly effective? Very little, in fact, is known about their impact. By examining the underlying hypotheses and workings of transitional justice and proposing a series of indicators to evaluate its results, this article helps to fill the gap.

scholarly journals ‘Justice seen is Justice done?’ - Assessing the Impact of Outreach Activities by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (74) ◽  
pp. 63-93
Author(s):  
Philipp Schulz
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
National Level ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Abstract By referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as a case study, this paper seeks to explore the impact of outreach activities by international criminal tribunals. Building upon primary field research findings, including twenty-seven in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 108 respondents, this paper applies a theory-driven investigation of the impact of outreach activities by the ICTR. Contrary to the theoretical argument, on a national level throughout society over time, outreach activities by the ICTR did neither increase awareness and understanding, nor shape positive perceptions towards the Tribunal and its expected contribution to reconciliation. Furthermore, a comparison of groups of outreach participants and control groups shows that outreach did increase the level of knowledge among beneficiaries of such activities. An increased understanding, however, cannot be correlated with more positive perceptions towards the Tribunal or its role in promoting reconciliation.

New histories and new laws: Crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 801-818
Author(s):  
Amanda Alexander
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
International Military Tribunal ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article looks at the development of the concept of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). It contends that the ICTR’s interpretation of crimes against humanity is generally seen by international lawyers as a commendable, but unsurprising, step in the historical development of this category. In much the same way, the ICTR’s historical account is considered to be a standard attempt by a war crimes court to relate a liberal history of crimes against humanity in a way that upholds civilized values. Yet, although the historical and legal work of the ICTR appear unexceptional, this article will argue that they do demonstrate a particular conceptual approach towards warfare, history, humanity, and the nature of international law. Moreover, this is a conceptual approach that is quite different to that taken by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The article suggests that these differences, and the invisibility of the change, are due to the ICTR’s reliance on familiar narrative tropes. These narratives were established through poststructuralist theory but could be expressed in a variety of more or (often) less theoretical forms. By exploring the influence of these narratives on the Tribunal, it is possible to examine some of the ways in which conceptual change is facilitated and knowledge is created in international law. In particular, it shows how theories that are often considered marginal to international law have had a significant impact on some of the central provisions of international humanitarian law.

s.VII Anxieties, Ch.26 International Criminal Tribunal Backlash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lovat Henry
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
International Adjudication ◽  
External Actors

This chapter explores the phenomenon of backlash against international criminal tribunals, defining backlash as ‘intense and sustained government disapproval of tribunal conduct, accompanied by aggressive steps to resist such conduct and to remove its legal force’. After promising beginnings, post-Cold War international criminal tribunals have increasingly faced strident criticism from important constituencies, including previously supportive governments. This has prompted concern about declining support for and ‘backlash’ against such tribunals, amidst broader debates about similar tendencies affecting international adjudication more generally. Drawing on International Relations theories, this chapter analyzes drivers and inhibitors to backlash against international criminal tribunals, specifically the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. It identifies several factors relevant for explaining tribunal backlash: domestic politics and the preferences and interests of powerful elites; external actors, particularly engaged regional and great powers; and transnational social pressure.

scholarly journals The Immunity of Heads of States of Nonparties in the Early Years of the ICC

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 172-176
Author(s):  
Dapo Akande
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Senior Leaders ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Heads Of State

More than any other international criminal tribunal, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has, in its early years, pursued cases against heads of state. The Court issued arrest warrants for President Omar al Bashir of Sudan and for Muammar Gaddafi while he was Libya's head of state, and it charged Uhuru Kenyatta shortly before he became head of state of Kenya. These attempts to prosecute heads of states have not only led to tensions between the Court and the African Union,1 but also pit the desire to hold senior leaders accountable for grave international crimes against the customary international law principle that certain senior state officials—especially heads of state—have immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction by virtue of their status, including immunity from arrest and their inviolability when abroad.2

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