INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE, WAR CRIMES, AND TRUTH COMMISSIONS
Challenges for the ICC - Enforcing Arrest Warrants
International Peace Institute, 17 May 2012
2012 M.C. Bassiouni Justice Award Winner - Dr. Patrick J. Treanor
Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law, 2012
Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal
Interviews with personnel from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Making Tyrants Do Time
Kathryn Sikkink, New York Times, 15 September 2011
An important new precedent in international law as perpetrator of Guatemalan Dos Erres massacre is convicted in Florida: Wrenching Testimony and a Historic Sentence: US Court Convicts Dos Erres Perpetrator for Lying about Role in Massacre.
Penal Reform International is carrying out a British Government funded research project on the gacaca courts in Rwanda. For an exceptionally useful, analytically rich set of reports containing valuable interview transcripts, click here and scroll down to Gacaca Reports to view PRI's reports on the gacaca courts in Rwanda .
The Enforcement of International Criminal Law- Aegis Trust
The Aegis Trust is based at the UK Holocaust Centre, in Laxton, Nottinghamshire, where it runs education programmes for young people and professionals. It is also responsible for Education and Memorial Centres in Rwanda, which commemorate the 1994 genocide and play a vital role in educating a new generation about the dangers of ethnic division.
The Canadian Centre for International Justice works with survivors of genocide, torture and other atrocities to seek redress and bring perpetrators to justice. We also assist people with close relationships to victims who died as a result of human rights violations or who are unable to contact us on their own.In particular, working through appropriate domestic, foreign and international courts, and other mechanisms, the CCIJ's mandate is to help ensure that individuals with a strong connection to Canada who experienced serious human rights violations are able to pursue justice against those who may have been responsible. This includes survivors of atrocities as well as family or those with close relationships to victims. The CCIJ seeks to ensure that individuals present in Canada who are accused of responsibility for serious human rights violations are held accountable and their victims recognized, supported and compensated. The CCIJ carries out this work in close cooperation with, and for the benefit of, affected communities and individuals in Canada and abroad, and endeavours to contribute to the success of the international justice system as a whole. The CCIJ also works collaboratively with domestic and international organizations and experts from a variety of fields in the fulfillment of its goals.
What's Next after Guantanamo Closes?
Case Western Reserve University Publishes Report of International Experts Meeting on Security Detention: The Report and associated articles indicate that international standards need to be clarified, adopted, and implemented to ensure that detainees are afforded prompt legal process and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the facts giving rise to their detention before a neutral arbiter. Moreover, extended security detention should be considered legitimate only where there is evidence that the detainee himself poses a serious security threat, an issue that must be subject to periodic review; and the longer the detention, the higher must be the evidentiary burden of the State.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court : This is probably the most important document in international criminal law today. It sets out key definitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes, explaining their legal meanings, and integrates the UN Convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. See especially articles 7 and 8 of this document. Also of major importance are article 28 on responsibility of commanders and other superiors, article 30 on the mental element, and article 33 on superior orders and prescription of law.
Background information on the evolution and ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court up to 31 December 2003 and the text of the Statute are available here in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Background Information
The International Criminal Court Web Site : The web site of the new ICC is currently available in English and French at this link.
Chart of countries who have ratified the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Court
The 1949 Geneva Conventions and additional protocols
United States Institute of Peace Library: Truth Commissions. Includes list of Truth Commissions, background, selected Commissions of Inquiry, supporting documents, bibliographies and links. Charters establishing the truth commissions for Chad, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Sierra Leone and Uganda and descriptions of new truth commissions for Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Truth Commissions Digital Collection: Library and Links: Jeannette Rankin Library Program: U.S. Institute of Peace
Concise definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes with useful discussion of the distinctions that need to be made between and among them
"Lacking Conviction." An article written by Juliet O'Neill appearing in the Ottawa Citizen, April 13, 2002.
"After losing a high-profile court case in 1994, the federal government developed a new strategy to go after killers, torturers and other fugitives from brutal foreign regimes who live in Canada. The results, admits one expert, have been 'extremely disappointing."
Click here for a PDF version
University of Bologna, Research Guide to International Law on the Internet. Organized into several specialties, of which the most useful are "Peace and Security," "Current Conflicts and Humanitarian Crisis," "Peacekeeping Operations," and "Human Rights." Each is organized into sub-heading listing many annotated links.
University of Bologna
Droits et Démocratie - Rights & Democracy. Lists publications, reports, press releases, and links to other resources and databases on human rights and democracy on the internet. Its "Impunity-Info" is published quarterly and offers concise coverage of genocide trials, truth commissions and the issue of impunity today. Text in English, French and Spanish.
Droits et Démocratie - Rights & Democracy
Professor Francis Auburn at the University of Western Australia, through his site on Public International Law Pages, provides some excellent links to sites related to human rights and International law as well as other links related to International Law Topics.
Public International Law
"The Prosecution of War Crimes and Respect for Human Rights: Ethiopia's Balancing Act." by Julie V. Mayfield. This article examines the recent history of Ethiopia, focusing mainly on the abuses of the Mengistu regime; the transition to the Transitional Government of Ethiopia; and the creation, mandate, jurisdiction, and current work of the Special Prosecutor's Office (SPO), established in August 1992 to prosecute these cases. Briefly discusses the debate over the use of international law or domestic law and the duty to prosecute with some focus on current and potential human rights concerns.
Emory International Law Review Homepage
United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
ICTY Home page
The special court for Sierra Leone: The Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up jointly by the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations. It is mandated to try those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law committed in the territory of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996. Currently, eleven persons associated with all three of the country's former warring factions stand indicted by the Special Court. They are charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. Specifically, the charges include murder, rape, extermination, acts of terror, enslavement, looting and burning, sexual slavery, conscription of children into an armed force, and attacks on United Nations peacekeepers and humanitarian workers, among others. Indictments against two other persons were withdrawn in December 2003 due to the deaths of the accused.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
Coalition for the International Criminal Court
CICC | Home Page
International Center for Transitional Justice
International Center for Transitional Justice
Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley
Human Rights Center
For excellent summaries of new case law arising from the decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda see:
Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: Topical Digests of the Case Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Human Rights Watch, February 2004)
Papers from the Conference on "Settling Accounts? Truth, Justice, and Redress in Post-Conflict Societies" from the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1-3 November 2004
Recent news about international criminal justice
