Can Criminal Prosecution be the Answer to massive Human Rights Violations?
Almost 60 years after the surviving Nazi-leaders were tried in the first ever international criminal tribunal for mass atrocities during World War II in Nuremberg, criminal responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes is perceived of as somewhat normal. Even if it is not yet an everyday event that human rights abusers are tried on an international level, the reality of the possibility of such a trial is present in the minds of the attentive public. This change was achieved over the last ten years. The establishing of the Yugoslavia-tribunal in 1993 was the turning point. Since then a number of both national and international trials held against human rights criminals has given the topic high priority. Finally the International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded and after a comparatively short time actually established and put in a position to operate. Sierra Leone relies on criminal prosecution in order to rebuild its society after a distracted and bloody civil war and a trial against Saddam Hussein seems a necessity. Many expectations are connected to criminal law and the working of the ICC. The dream of a world-wide justice, i.e. to attribute “just desert” to the offenders and to do justice to the victims, seems to have become reality. At the same time the establishing of an international criminal court is understood as a signal that will deter future offenders from committing human rights atrocities. The paper of Alexandra Kemmerer gives proof of how optimistically the EU promotes the idea of international criminal justice.