13. International criminal justice

Author(s):  
Nicole Scicluna

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.

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 205-208
Author(s):  
Eyal Benvenisti ◽  
Sarah M.H. Nouwen

As a response to the Symposium on the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda published by the American Journal of International Law on the occasion of the tribunals’ closure, this AJIL Unbound Symposium intends to broaden the debate on the “legacies” of those courts. The AJIL Symposium contains articles on the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR); the ad hoc tribunals’ jurisprudential contributions; and their extra-legal impacts and legacies. The concept of “legacy” is itself contested and the appropriateness of the courts’ own efforts to consolidate it may be questioned, especially as they have barely ended (or are about to end) their work. Nevertheless, their over two decades of existence does provide an occasion to assess all they have done and not done, and have affected, intentionally and unintentionally. Against that background, we have invited a group of scholars to respond to the AJIL Symposium and to reflect upon the work of the tribunals with a view to enriching the debate with more voices, from different regions, from different interest groups, and from different disciplines.


Author(s):  
Carsten Stahn

The chapter sets the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) legacies into a broader context of international criminal justice. It presents different approaches towards the many legacies of the ICTY. The chapter engages with the several phases that the Tribunal has passed, discussing their positive and negative points. It then examines the normative legacy of the ICTY, arguing that, although some gaps exist, the overall record of the ICTY is marked with several normative innovations. The chapter then visits the procedural legacy of the ICTY, in the sense of how the Tribunal made justice heard and seen. Lastly, the chapter discusses the institutional culture of the ICTY and its legacy to other international criminal tribunals. With this analysis, the chapter claims that the ICTY legacies are living beings, which will continue to be transformed throughout the history of international criminal justice.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 227-233
Author(s):  
Kirsten Campbell

What are the legacies for gender justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)? Darryl Robinson and Gillian MacNeil in this symposium describe the modernization of the law on sexual violence as a key legacy of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals. However, this characterization does not capture the wider challenges that gender based crimes have raised for the Tribunals, including other legacies of gendered hierarchiesand inequalities.How, then, is it possible to move past these issues to build international criminal justice so that it transforms, rather than reproduces, gendered injustices?


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONIO CASSESE

AbstractHaving identified the differences between the concept of legality and the much more complex concept of legitimacy, the author scrutinizes the legality and the legitimacy of the existing international criminal tribunals. Their legality has been put in doubt only concerning the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), but the criticisms have been or could be overcome. Assessing the legitimacy of these tribunals is instead a more difficult task. In fact, misgivings have been voiced essentially concerning the legitimacy of the ICTY and the STL, but not the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the other international criminal courts. The legitimacy of the STL in particular deserves to be discussed: even assuming that the STL initially lacked some forms of legitimacy, it could achieve it – or confirm it – through its ‘performance legitimacy’. The author then suggests what the realistic prospects for international criminal justice are. Convinced as he is that it is destined to flourish even more, he tries to identify the paths it is likely to take in future years.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-510
Author(s):  
SALVATORE ZAPPALA

AbstractThis article is a journey through the life of Antonio Cassese, a giant of international law, no doubt one of the most prominent international lawyers of the twentieth century, and the ‘architect of international criminal justice’. From his first steps in the academic community in Pisa in the early 1960s to his well-known contributions as first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, he became a prolific author and editor of seminal books and commentaries on international law and international criminal law, as well as founder of groundbreaking law journals.


Author(s):  
Richard Goldstone

This article discusses contemporary international efforts to consolidate and codify significant portions of existing customary international law. It studies the ad hoc tribunals of the UN and pinpoints the successes and failures of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The ‘completion strategy’ of both international criminal tribunals is discussed. The article also covers the creation of ‘mixed’ courts and a single model for international criminal justice, namely the International Criminal Court.


Author(s):  
G. Nelaeva ◽  
Z. Gizatullina

In the beginning of the 1990-s there was growing interest on the part of the international community to establish international criminal tribunals meant to judge suspects charged with crimes perpetrated during armed conflicts. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) became the first tribunal in a number of international and quasi-international institutions that emerged after the end of the Cold War. It seems indispensable to examine the steps taken by the UN member states prior to the establishment of the ICTY in order to see the reasons why the decision to create such an institution had been taken.


Author(s):  
Aaron Fichtelberg

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.


Author(s):  
Olexandr Bazov

In the current conditions of the active development of the international criminal justice system from the Nuremberg and TokyoWar Crimes Tribunals, and after – the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, international criminaljudicial authorities of the so-called «new wave» or «third generation» are in the field of view of the science of international law, thestudy of the legal and institutional foundations of which represents significant scientific and practical interest. The legal and institutional foundations of the activities of a Special Court in Kosovo (the name also used to denote the KosovoSpecialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office) in the science of international law, in our opinion, has not sufficiently studied.We believe that this is due both to the fact that this Court, as new type of international criminal justice, was created recently, aswell as to the insignificant and contradictory practice of its judicial activity.Considering the foregoing, the aim of the article is to study the legal and institutional foundations and activities of a Special Courtto investigate war and other international crimes that were committed on the territory of Kosovo and which occupies a special place inthe international criminal justice system, given the specific features of its creation and activities, the formations of its international andnational components.The scientific novelty of the research results is that a comprehensive study of the legal and institutional foundations of the creationand activities of the Court, in Ukraine is being done for the first time.As the same time, during the scientific study, it was taken into account that this Court was created with the active participationof the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union and also individual countries, as well as Kosovo in ordered to pro -secute for the commission of international crimes during the armed conflict in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the «winners» –the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK), who were never prosecuted for their commissions of international crimesduring the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).


Author(s):  
William A. Schabas

Today’s elaborate system of international criminal justice originates in proposals at the end of the First World War to try Kaiser Wilhelm II before an international criminal tribunal. In the weeks following 11 November 1918, the British, French, and Italian Governments agreed on a trial. Lloyd George campaigned for re-election on the slogan ‘Hang the Kaiser’. The Kaiser had fled to the Netherlands, possibly after receiving signals from the Dutch Queen that he would be welcome. Renegade US soldiers led by a former Senator failed in a bizarre attempt to take him prisoner and bring him to Paris. During the Peace Conference, the Commission on Responsibilities brought international lawyers together for the first time to debate international criminal justice. They recommended trial of the Kaiser by an international tribunal for war crimes, but not for starting the war or violating Belgian neutrality. The Americans were opposed to any prosecution. However, President Wilson changed his mind and agreed to trial for a ‘supreme offence against international morality’. This became a clause in the Treaty of Versailles, one of the few that the Germans tried to resist. Although the Allies threatened a range of measures if the former Emperor was not surrendered, the Dutch refused and the demands were dropped in March 1920. The Kaiser lived out his life in a castle near Utrecht, dying of natural causes in June 1941. Hitler sent a wreath to the funeral.


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