Changing the Paradigm of International Criminal Law: Considering the Work of the United Nations War Crimes Commission of 1943–1948

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Plesch ◽  
Shanti Sattler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
The United Nations

Abstract More than 2,000 international criminal trials were conducted at the end of World War II in addition to those held by the International Military Tribunals (IMTs) at Nuremburg and Tokyo. Fifteen national tribunals conducted these trials in conjunction with an international war crimes commission established by these same states in October 1943 under the name, The United Nations Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes, that soon became the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). The extensive work of the UNWCC and these tribunals serves as a source of customary international criminal law that relates directly to the current work of the International Criminal Court and the ad hoc tribunals in operation since the 1990s.

scholarly journals Prosecutor v. Ayyash et al. (Special Trib. Leb.)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-91
Author(s):  
Michael Lysander Fremuth
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
World War ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
International Character

The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 constitutes a landmark in the development of International Criminal Law (ICL), which gained its first momentum after World War II through the foundation of International Military Tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo. ICL is, however, not confined to these most prominent courts or their statutes providing for definitions of international crimes under their respective jurisdiction; rather, ad hoc international, or internationalized and hybrid special tribunals and criminal chambers also contribute to the development and shape of ICL and reflect its diverse legal and institutional basis. Perceived as another tribunal of “international character,” on August 18, 2020, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) pronounced its judgment on the merits in the Ayyash case. The long-awaited verdict raises the question of the Tribunal's contribution to the further evolution of ICL.

Many Doors to International Criminal Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
John Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Survivor Guilt ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Complex Sequences

Responsibilities to protect and prevent elite crimes are best energized by enforcement that walks through many doors. Effective deterrence is rarely delivered by the International Criminal Court. Yet deterrence is possible when it patiently cumulates through many doors. Likewise truth, justice, and reconciliation can achieve little through one door and much through many. Opening more doors to the complexly cross-cutting character of survivor guilt with mass atrocities can better open possibilities for future prevention and reconciliation than simply doors to courtrooms that find a criminal on one side of complex sequences of atrocity. The Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials opened quickly after World War II. They did not prove to hold keys to truth and reconciliation for Germany until the Eichmann trial finished in Jerusalem in 1962. Why? Still today, non-confession by the U.S. to Hiroshima/Nagasaki as war crimes has meant truncated Japanese reconciliation. Different kinds of doors are needed with crimes like the Dresden and Tokyo fire bombing, the rape of Nanjing and the “comfort women” issue. These have included citizens tribunals, truth commissions, and indigenous justice in cases like Bougainville that rejected the truth commission model. When we reflect upon door diversity, transitional justice turns out not to be very focused on justice or international criminal law, and not to be at all transitional, but rather a maze of doors to justice of diverse kinds that open or close across the longue durée (as developed in the work of Susanne Karstedt).1

scholarly journals Nazi Crimes in Poland. A Never-Ending Search for Justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-160
Author(s):  
Hanna Kuczyńska
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
World War ◽  
National Courts ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Efficient Machine

This article deals with the model for prosecuting Nazi crimes committed in Poland in the light of the model presently used in international criminal law. It tries to answer the question: should the investigation of crimes of international law be handed over to transnational tribunals? Should they be hybrid tribunals involving a national factor, or completely supra-national tribunals like the International Criminal Court? Is it legitimate to transfer jurisdiction over these matters to national courts? The case of unpunished Nazi crimes in Poland may give a partial answer to this question. Certainly, various attempts made after World War II, including procedures brought before Polish courts, have contributed to understanding the function of international criminal law, and finding the answer to the question of the best model for prosecuting crimes of international law. At present, we also have the experience of international criminal tribunals, in particular the ICC, which is an efficient machine for prosecuting crimes of international law. Interesting conclusions can be drawn from its functioning that could improve the work of Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) prosecutors, and shed new light on the considerations regarding the prosecution of Nazi crimes in Poland after World War II.

scholarly journals The Legacy of the ICTY and ICTR in China

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Bing Bing Jia
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Tribunal

Legacy is a matter that may become topical when its creator finally stops producing. Normally, the silent years would be many before the thought of legacy enters into open, formal discourse among lawyers and decision-makers. This comment treats the meaning of the word as relative to the circumstances in which it is invoked. The more closely it is used in relation to the present, the more distant it drifts from its literal meaning, to the extent that it denotes what the word “impact” signifies. This essay questions whether the word “legacy” is apt in describing the footprint of the work of the two ad hoctribunals in China, where its influence has, as a matter of fact, been waning ever since the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998 (“Rome Statute” ). The Chinese example suggests that the work of the tribunals is (at least so far) no more significant to international criminal law than the illustrious Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials of the 1940s. The most major impact (a more apposite term than legacy) of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for China may be that China’s policy with regard to the tribunals, manifested mostly in the United Nations, has determined its approach to the International Criminal Court (“ICC” ). For that, the work of the tribunals could be considered as having left China something in the nature of an indirect legacy.

Investigating Crimes against Humanity in Syria and Iraq: The Commission for International Justice and Accountability

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Rankin
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International System ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Community ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The United Nations

The failure of the United Nations to effect a ‘responsibility to protect’ in Syria and Iraq has provoked acrimonious debates over how the international community should respond to mass atrocities in the contemporary international order. Moreover, the fact that the International Criminal Court and other United Nations (un) agencies remain unable to investigate in Syria and Iraq, has reinvigorated debate on the mechanisms available to bring those most responsible for humanities gravest crimes to account. This article examines the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (cija). As non-state actors, cija conduct their investigations outside the United Nations system, with the aim of investigating and preparing case briefs for the most senior leaders suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria; and war crimes, crimes against humanity and allegations of genocide in Iraq. This article argues that in preparing case briefs for individual criminal liability for a future prosecution, cija have attempted to extend the system of international criminal law, and in so doing, pose a challenge to traditional notions of the state in relation to the concept of war and the law, and the relationship between power and law in the international system. The article concludes by the asking the question: does the international community have a ‘responsibility to prosecute’ those suspected of criminal misconduct?

The Historical Function of International Criminal Trials: Re-thinking International Criminal Law

2004 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Social Recovery ◽  
Historical Function ◽  
International Criminal Trials

AbstractThe establishment of the International Criminal Court provides an opportunity to re-think international criminal law and procedure, and to develop a more coherent theory of international criminal justice. This article argues that increasingly the demands placed upon international criminal trials go beyond the process of securing convictions. There is an increasing expectation that such trials will contribute to broader processes of social recovery and reconciliation. Claims are also made for their having a pedagogical and documentary role. To this end, the author proposes the recognition of an historical function of international criminal trials. This is suggested as best forming part of the variety of policy rationales which underpin the processes of international criminal law. It is conceded that overemphasising the role of history could be dangerous and infringe upon the rights of the accused, but it is argued that underemphasising the role of theory and history is unsatisfactory. The article concludes that recognition of an historical function for international criminal trials involves tensions, but will provide a framework and rationale for a more narrative-based and victimfocused system of international criminal law which might provide an important discursive beginning for victims and affected communities, whilst balancing due process concerns.

scholarly journals Is There an International Criminal Law?

1969 ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
L. C. Green
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship

In this pragmatic discussion of international criminal law, the author provides both an analytic and historical overview of the jurisprudence. The roles of treaties, conventions, and the United Nations are presented as the relationship between international and domestic criminal law is explored. In this process, the author distinguishes international legal posturing from bona fide attempts to create an international criminal law.

scholarly journals SEXUAL SLAVERY OF CHILDREN AS A WAR CRIME IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL PERSPECTIVE

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1171-1176
Author(s):  
N. Indriati ◽  
◽  
Wismaningsih a ◽  
Danial b ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Sexual Slavery ◽  
The Right

Child is a creature from God Almighty who needs to be protected by self-esteem and his dignity and is guaranteed for the right of his life to grow and develop according to his natural fate. Any form of treatment that interferes and impairs the fundamental rights in various forms of unauthorized utilization and exploitation must be discontinued without exception.This is a normative juridical research. The method of the research is statute approaches, that is analyzing sexual slavery in children as war crime, because many cases of completion can be done through international criminal court.The results showed that child is vulnerable to any crime of its form at his ag, and one of the war crimes is child sexual slavery, which are not a few children became victims. In international criminal law is known the term of individual responsibility, which means that the perpetrators of criminals either commander or soldier can be tried in the International Criminal Court established by Rome Statuteof 1998.

scholarly journals The trial’s the thing: Performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257
Author(s):  
Kate Leader
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
International Criminal Trials

This article explores the relationship between performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials through the lens of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I begin by analysing the deployment of theatrical tropes by different legal scholars, such as Hannah Arendt, and David Luban, arguing that such analogies serve as a policing mechanism for the author to distinguish what they perceive to be the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ theatre of the trial. I then move beyond analogy, drawing on legal sociology and performance theory to read the criminal trial as ritual-like, normative performance. Using the ICC as a case study, I will examine how performance is deployed to create, reinforce and naturalize the role of the ICC in international criminal law. Through focusing on issues of performance and community I offer a different way of looking at what may constitute legitimacy in international criminal law from that which is offered by other legal scholars.

Moving from Nuremberg to The Hague

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-66
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Far East ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Hague

This chapter examines how, appalled by the glaring impunity for gross violations of international humanitarian law committed in the course of the Yugoslavia fragmentation wars in the early 1990s, the author was among those who called for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A war crimes tribunal, sought by the U.N. Security Council, would be the first since the Nuremberg and Far East trials following World War II. The chapter then looks at the inadequacy of international humanitarian and criminal law recognized as applicable to non-international armed conflicts, focusing on the case of rape. It considers the establishment of the modern international criminal tribunals at The Hague and Arusha. The chapter also studies the ICTY, the ICTR and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

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