The Security Council and International Crimes in Syria

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-120
Author(s):  
Beth Van Schaack
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Reform Effort ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Way

Chapter 3 revisits some of the conflict history through the lens of (in)action at the U.N. Security Council, whose discursive practices, pronouncements, operational initiatives, and vetoed resolutions offer a distinctive window into the trajectory of the conflict and the international community’s meager and ineffectual reaction to the atrocities underway. This chapter traces these malfunctions on a number of fronts alongside the few areas of progress. The areas of concern include condemnations of human rights violations and abuses; attempts to impose ceasefires and expand humanitarian access; the use of force and the Responsibility to Protect; inspiring the parties to pursue a political transition; the international community’s preoccupation with counterterrorism and countering violent extremism measures; neutralizing Syria’s chemical weapons; futile efforts to impose U.N. sanctions; and—most relevant to this volume—attempts to promote accountability, including a French-led effort to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. Along the way, the chapter assembles the vetoes deployed by the P-5 during the Syrian conflict and captures the deteriorating dynamics within the Council chamber. The paralysis in the Council sets the scene for the chapters that follow, which recount efforts to promote accountability elsewhere. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of the way in which the Syrian conflict has further stimulated the Security Council reform effort.

Prospects for Justice before the International Criminal Court

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-210
Author(s):  
Beth Van Schaack
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Territorial Jurisdiction ◽  
The Many ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
Foreign Fighters

Chapter 5 begins the book’s journey through the accountability matrix with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Russia and China vetoed the ICC referral resolution, thus preventing the Court from exercising its plenary jurisdiction over events in Syria, the transnational elements of the conflict mean that there are still some options for invoking the Court’s nationality and territorial jurisdiction. Given the proliferation of foreign fighters hailing from around the globe, including from ICC member states, the Syrian conflict offers the potential to activate the Court’s nationality jurisdiction. In addition, the spillover effects of the war implicate the territories of ICC states parties, in the region and beyond, as well as states where the ICC is already active, such as Libya. Finally, there are theoretical arguments that the Security Council could refer “the situation involving ISIL” to the Court, which could encompass either the organization itself, untethered from any territorial space, or the transboundary statelet that once encompassed ISIL’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Although many advocates and diplomats assumed that the ICC should be in the lead adjudicating the many international crimes committed in Syria, this chapter closes with some notes of caution as to why the ICC may not be the ideal forum, even assuming a Council referral were forthcoming.

A Menu of Models

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-264
Author(s):  
Beth Van Schaack
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Tribunal ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Personal Jurisdiction

Given the limited availability of the International Criminal Court (ICC) when it comes to the crimes being committed in Syria, chapter 6 presents an array of legal theories and practical modalities for exercising international jurisdiction that do not involve the ICC or the U.N. Security Council, including a number of innovative paradigms for creating a dedicated ad hoc international tribunal. These options include the potential for a subset of states to pool their respective jurisdictional competencies to create a tribunal reminiscent of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Other available models include additional action at the U.N. General Assembly; a regional tribunal within the League of Arab States; a tribunal created by way of an international agreement among interested states; trials before specialized chambers in liberated areas within Syria or within neighboring states with varying degrees of international involvement; or the building of a shell of a special chamber that could be eventually inserted into the Syrian judicial system post-transition. Any of these models could incorporate various elements of hybridity. The chapter argues that many of these models offer a better option for the situation in Syria than the ICC given the extent and nature of the international crimes being committed (war crimes in a largely non-international armed conflict) and limitations within the ICC’s subject matter and personal jurisdiction. The chapter closes with a pragmatic discussion of steps that the international community could have taken to lay the groundwork for any of the models discussed, even prior to the end of the conflict or a political transition in Syria.

سلطات مجلس الأمن تجاه المحكمة الدولية الجنائية

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abd Alghafoor Saleh Mohammed ◽  
Yahya Salih Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Political Group ◽  
The Relationship

The Security Council is one of the main organs of the United Nations, and according to its convention, this organ has been authorized with many main tasks, so as to maintain peace and international security, out of which the establishment of International Private Courts or what is called Temporary Courts to prosecute those accused of committing international crimes. With the absence of international judiciary at that time, and after the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the relationship between the two was under consideration, especially with regard to the role of the Security Council and its authority in the referral of international crimes to the Criminal Courts and the extent to which this condition is mandatory, where a lot of discussion were held among the delegations participating in the Rome Conference that established the International Criminal Courts system in 1998, in supporting the inclusion of the role of a political organ represented by the Security Council in the procedures of an international judicial organ represented by the International Criminal Court, where the court is supposed to be independent in doing its judicial function away from politicization. The study aims to clarify the relationship between these two organs and the extent of the obligation to refer crimes by the Security Counsel to the International Criminal Court. The methodology used in this research are descriptive analysis to extrapolate the texts and legal materials related to the subject of the research, and analyse all that in order to reach results of the research. The results of the study showed that the Security Council - based on chapter VII of the convention- consists of many deterrent sanctions, starting with economic sanctions and ending with military deterrence. Although, the separation between them achieves the independence of the international judiciary and ensures that no foreign political group interferes or controls the court, which is intended to be independent and free to ensure the application of the international law.

scholarly journals The Role of the UN Security Council vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court – Resolution 1970 (2011) and its Challenges to International Criminal Justice

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-23
Author(s):  
Gabriel M. Lentner
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Principle Of Legality

Abstract On February 26 2011, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1970 referring the situation concerning Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Th is unprecedented support for and acknowledgment of the ICC did not come without a price: conditio sine qua non for Council members not party to the ICC was the inclusion of operative § 6 into the resolution, which exempts certain categories of nationals of non-parties from ICC jurisdiction. Th e same highly controversial exemption was included in the Security Council’s referral of the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005. Deviating from the Rome Statute’s jurisdiction regime such practice not just poses challenges to principles of international criminal justice but raises the question whether the Rome Statute is altered by the resolution containing the referral to the effect that the ICC is being bound to the exemptions contained in its exercise of jurisdiction. Addressing these issues, the present paper elaborates firstly on the jurisdictional exemption of § 6 and its effect on the ICC, followed by a discussion of resulting challenges to the principle of legality, the principle of universal jurisdiction for international crimes, the equality of individuals before the law and the principle of independence of the court.

A Historic Breakthrough on the Crime of Aggression

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Barriga ◽  
Leena Grover
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
State Consent ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Article 5

At 12:20 in the morning on Saturday, June 12, 2010, the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda, adopted by consensus a comprehensive package of amendments on the crime of aggression. States parties to the Rome Statute thereby delivered on their promise, reflected in Article 5 (2) of the Statute, to define the crime of aggression and to agree on the conditions for the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over that crime. Despite a thorough and more than decadelong preparatory process, few, if any, had predicted such a substantive outcome on the crime of aggression in light of the serious disagreements on major questions, which persisted until the last days of the conference. The key elements of the final package are a definition of the crime of aggression, which limits criminal responsibility to leaders who are responsible for the most serious forms of the illegal use of force between states, and a complicated set of conditions for exercising jurisdiction. Investigations would be based on either a Security Council referral or state consent.

NGOs for International Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjersti Lohne
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Relative Lack ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Oriented Approach

Kjersti Lohne describes the impact of non-governmental organizations at the International Criminal Court (ICC), in particular discussing the relative lack of regard for defendants’ rights, and especially highlighting the difficulties encountered by those acquitted. After the Coalition for the International Criminal Court contributed to the establishment of the ICC itself in the fight against impunity for international crimes, that Coalition has continued a victim-oriented approach, arguably at the expense of defendants’ rights. The ICC’s focus on victims, ‘truth’, and ‘memory’ may challenge the legitimacy of the Court in the longer run.

scholarly journals Tilting at windmills: Reparations and the International Criminal Court

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Luke Moffett ◽  
Clara Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Crimes

Abstract More than 20 years on from the signing of the Rome Statute, delivering victim-centred justice through reparations has been fraught with legal and practical challenges. The Court’s jurisprudence on reparations only began to emerge from 2012 and struggles to find purchase on implementation on the ground. In its first few cases of Lubanga, Katanga, and Al Mahdi the eligibility and forms of reparations have been limited to certain victims, subject to years of litigation, and faced difficulties in delivery due to ongoing insecurity. This is perhaps felt most acutely in the Bemba case, where more than 5,000 victims of murder, rape and pillage were waiting for redress, and the defendant was not indigent, but where he was later acquitted on appeal, thereby extinguishing reparation proceedings. This article critically appraises the jurisprudence and practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on reparations. It looks at competing principles and rationales for reparations at the Court in light of comparative practice in international human rights law and transitional justice processes to consider what is needed to ensure that the ICC is able to deliver on its reparations mandate. An underpinning argument is that reparations at the ICC cannot be seen in isolation from other reparation practices in the states where the Court operates. Reparative complementarity for victims of international crimes is essential to maximize the positive impact that the fulfilment of this right can have on victims and not to sacrifice the legitimacy of the Court, nor quixotically strive for the impossible.

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