International criminal law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
International criminal law is an autonomous branch of law which deals with international crimes and the courts and tribunals set up to adjudicate cases in which persons have incurred international criminal responsibility. It represents a significant departure from 'classical' international law which was mainly considered law created by states for the benefit of states, but tended to ignore the individual as a subject of the law.
[edit] History
Some precedents in international criminal law can be found in the time before the First World War. However, it was only after the war that a truly international criminal tribunal was envisaged to try perpetrators of crimes committed in this period. Thus, the Treaty of Versailles stated that an international tribunal was to be set up to try Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. In the event however, the Kaiser was granted asylum in the Netherlands. After the Second World War, the Allied powers set up an international tribunal to try not only war crimes, but crimes against humanity committed under the Nazi regime. The Nuremberg Tribunal held its first session on 20 November 1945 and pronounced judgments on 30 September / 1 October 1946. A similar tribunal was established for Japanese war crimes (The International Military Tribunal for the Far East). It operated from 1946 to 1948.
After the beginning of the war in Bosnia, the United Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 and, after the genocide in Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1994. The International Law Commission had commenced preparatory work for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court in 1993; in 1998, at a Diplomatic Conference in Rome, the Rome Statute establishing the ICC was signed. The ICC issued its first arrest warrants in 2005.
[edit] Institutions of international criminal law
Today, the most important institution is the International Criminal Court as well as several ad hoc tribunals:
- The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
- The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Apart from these institutions, some 'hybrid' courts and tribunals exist - judicial bodies in which both international and national judges are represented. Examples are the Extraordinary Chambers for Cambodia (investigating the crimes of the Pol Pot era) and the war crimes court at Kosovo.
[edit] Literature
- Hans Köchler, Global Justice or Global Revenge? International Criminal Justice at the Crossroads (2003)
- Lyal S. Sunga, The Emerging System of International Criminal Law: Developments in Codification and Implementation , Kluwer (1997) 508 p. (ISBN 90-411-0472-0)
- Lyal S. Sunga, Individual Responsibility in International Law for Serious Human Rights Violations, Nijhoff (1992) 252 p. (ISBN 0-7923-1453-0)
- Lyal S. Sunga, International Criminal Law Protection of Minority Rights, in Skurbaty (ed), Beyond a One-Dimensional State: An Emerging Right to Autonomy? Brill (2004).
- Lyal S. Sunga, Independence and Fairness of the ICC, in Study on Major Issues Relating to the International Criminal Court (People’s Court Press) (2003) 24-30 (in Putonghua).
- Lyal S. Sunga, Full Respect for the Rights of Suspect, Accused and Convict: from Nuremberg and Tokyo to the ICC, in Henzelin and Roth (eds), Le droit pénal à l’épreuve de l’internationalisation, (Bruylant) (2002) 217-239.
- Lyal S. Sunga, A Competência Ratione Materiae da Corte Internacional Criminal: Arts. 5 a 10 Do Estatuto de Roma, in Ambos and Choukr (eds.) Tribunal Penal Internacional (Editora RT) (2000) 191 - 219 (in Portuguese).
- Lyal S. Sunga, La Jurisdicción ratione materiae de la Corte Penal Internacional (parte II, arts. 5̊ a 10̊), in Ambos (eds.) El Estatuto de Roma: de la Corte Penal Internacional (Universidad externado de Colombia) (1999) 233-268.
- Lyal S. Sunga, The Attitude of Asian Countries Towards the International Criminal Court, 2 Indian Society of International Law Yearbook of International Humanitarian and Refugee Law (2002) 18-57.
- Lyal S. Sunga, The Čelebići Case: A Comment on the Main Legal Issues in the ICTY’s Trial Chamber Judgement, 13 Leiden Journal of International Law (2000) 105-138.
- Lyal S. Sunga, The Crimes within the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court: (Part II, Articles 5 - 10), 6/4 European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (1998) 377-399.
- Lyal S. Sunga, The First Indictments of the ICTR, 18 Human Rights Law Journal (1997) 329-340.
- Lyal S. Sunga, The Comm’n of Experts on Rwanda and Creation of the ICTR 16 Human Rights Law Journal (1995) 121-124.
