Search: A Future Crimes Against Humanity Convention and Asia: A New Tool for Accountability
28 Jul Symposium on Ljubljana – The Hague Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance: Critical Reflections – Victims’ Rights under the Ljubljana – The Hague Convention: Revisiting the Travaux Préparatoires
[Bruno Biazatti is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law and a PhD candidate at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.] The author attended the Ljubljana Diplomatic Conference and the observations contained here reflect his personal notes taken during the negotiations. The Ljubljana – The Hague Convention on International Cooperation in the Investigation and Prosecution of the Crime of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes and other International Crimes (“the Convention”), adopted on 26 May 2023 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is an important step...
21 Jul Universal Jurisdiction: Arguments for a More ‘Universal’ Double Criminality Requirement in France
crimes and crimes against humanity, the crime of genocide is not criminalized in most states by virtue of a domestic law. In 2019, the French legislator made the prosecution of genocide fully independent from its criminalisation in foreign legislation. In 2023, the Court of Cassation ultimately ruled that for crimes against humanity and war crimes, trying an international criminal does not depend on the codification of the contextual elements of such crimes in the relevant foreign legislation. 6. Conclusion Trying perpetrators of international crimes by way of universal jurisdiction should...
08 Oct Prospects for a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity
new treaty. This is the result of a global effort originating in the trial of 24 Nazi criminals on charges of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Tribunal. Unlike war crimes, however, crimes against humanity were never codified in a specialized convention, although the 1948 Genocide Convention criminalizes one form of crimes against humanity. Several prominent scholars – chief among them the late M. Cherif Bassiouni – wrote profusely on the need for such an instrument to close an increasingly important gap in international law. Yet it was not until...
27 Jul Symposium on Ljubljana – The Hague Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance: Critical Reflections – A Historic Step Forward in the Fight Against Impunity for International Crimes
Born as an initiative of a few States, the so-called “Core Group”, notably Argentina, Belgium, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Senegal and Slovenia, the Ljubljana-The Hague Convention turns out to be a major new international criminal law treaty containing important human rights law provisions. It aims “to facilitate international cooperation in criminal matters between States Parties with a view to strengthening the fight against impunity” for the most serious crimes (Article 1). The crimes primarily concerned by the Convention are the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and a list of war...02 May Mark Osiel, The End of Reciprocity
...of the Charter, but from the beginning of the war in 1939 war crimes were committed on a vast scale, which were also crimes against humanity; and insofar as the inhumane acts charged in the Indictment, and committed after the beginning of the war, did not constitute war crimes, they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggressive war, and therefore constituted crimes against humanity. UNQUOTE Cheney and Addington have floated all the same excuses, and they have committed all the same crimes with the single...
31 May The Significance of South Africa’s Accession to the 1973 Apartheid Convention and Suggestions for Improving the Treaty Text
party to the Apartheid Convention? And what improvements can be made to the text of the Apartheid Convention to better achieve its aims? The 1973 Apartheid Convention It should come as no surprise that South Africa was one of four states (the other being Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States) that voted against the adoption of the Apartheid Convention in 1973. It was noted that the Apartheid Convention ‘was the ultimate step in the condemnation of apartheid as it not only declared that apartheid was unlawful because it...
22 Dec Of Justice and Justice: Prosecution of Francoism Crimes in Spain
Española, or CE), the principle of legality precludes the application of crimes against humanity because: International custom is insufficient to create criminal offenses, and even if so, there was no international custom as to which crimes against humanity were criminal offenses at the time and, and even if so, the strict requirements under Article 25.1 CE would prevent its incorporation to the Spanish legal system. Customary Status of Crimes Against Humanity Unlike other international crimes, crimes against humanity are not established in treaty outside of the Statutes of the different...14 Sep Guest Post: The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative and Recent Developments towards a Treaty
discussing the Proposed International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity (Proposed Convention), published by Cambridge University Press in English, French and Spanish in Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity. Arabic, Chinese, German and Russian translations are also available. The Proposed Convention was elaborated to inspire and inform the debate on the substance of a new crimes against humanity convention. Drafted by experts without the constraints of government instructions (although deeply cognizant of political realities), it provides a platform for discussion by states, civil society and...
22 May The Court of the Citizens of the World – Ecocide Tribunal: Judgment in the People vs. the United States, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina and Decision on Indictment Confirmation in the Prosecutor vs. Jair Messias Bolsonaro (Part III)
...inducing the commission of a crime; Article 25(3)(c) which criminalizes the commission of a crime through aiding, abetting or assistance; and Article 25(3)(d) which criminalizes the commission of a crime by a group of persons acting with a common purpose. Crimes Against Humanity With these preliminary conclusions settled, we will move onto the international criminal law on crimes against humanity. Article 7 of the ICC Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity as “any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any...
30 Nov UNSC Veto Power Symposium: Are there Jus Cogens Limits to UN Security Council Vetoes in Atrocity Crime Contexts?
war crimes, also bear a jus cogens character. Second, and significantly for our purposes, the ILC also concluded that there is a multipronged duty to prevent and punish crimes against humanity analogous to the duties in the Genocide Convention – as explained in the ICJ’s 2007 Bosnia Genocide Judgment. Here, it is unclear whether the positive duty to take measures to prevent crimes against humanity is a codification of customary international law or progressive development of the law of crimes against humanity. There may be aspects of crimes against humanity,...