CRIMINALIZING THE BREACHES OF THE CARDINAL PRINCIPLES OF HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE REBIRTH OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

Presentation of Lyne Calder, Giulia Soldan and Chantal StaehelinL‘Evolution du droit international du maintien de la paix, Prof. Dupuy 25 November 2010

OUTLINE

1. Contexte historique2. Legal basis for the creation of the ICTY3. Contribution of the ICTY to the development

of International Humanitarian Law4. Penser plus loin...

1. CONTEXTE HISTORIQUE

A. Contexte politique de la création du TPIY :

début des années ’90

Fin de la guerre froide (1989)– intervention en Iraq (1990-1991)

Intervention en Somalie (à partir d’avril 1992)

Nécessité d’intervenir dans les Balkans: théâtre d’un “nouvel Holocaust”

Importance des médias occidentaux

B. Contexte juridique

Tribunaux militaires internationaux de Nuremberg et Tokyo (1945)

Convention sur la prévention et répression du crime de génocide (1948)

Développement de la doctrine des droits de l’homme (à partir du 1945) et des normes impératives du droit international (Convention de Vienne sur le droit des traités 1969)

Travaux de la Commission de droit international Code des crimes contre la paix et la sécurité de

l’humanité (1991, 1996) Projet de Statut d’une cour pénale internationale

(1990, 1994) Projet d’article sur la Responsabilité de l’État pour

fait internationalement illicite (1ère version : 1996) Crime de l’État Responsabilité collective

2. LEGAL BASIS FOR THE CREATION OF THE ICTY “ Expressing once again its grave alarm at continuing reports of

widespread violations of international humanitarian law occurring within the territory of the former Yugoslavia and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including reports of mass killings and the continuance of the practice of “ethnic cleansing”,

UNSC Resolution 780 (1992): established a Commission of Experts “to examine and analyse the information submitted … with a view to providing the Secretary-General its conclusions on the evidence of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law”

UNSC Resolution 808 (1993): decides on the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of IHL, requests the Secretary-General to submit a report on “all aspects of the matter, including specific proposals”

UNSC Resolution 827 (1993): “Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations” accepts the Statute of the International Tribunal, decides all State shall cooperate fully with the International Tribunal and its organs

“ The Security Council is thus subjected to certain constitutional limitations, however broad its powers under the constitution may be. Those powers cannot, in any case, go beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of the Organization at large, not to mention other specific limitations or those which may derive from the internal division of power within the Organization. In any case, neither the text nor the spirit of the Charter conceives of the Security Council as legibus solutus (unbound by law). ” Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic, Decision on the Defence Motion for

Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 2 October 1995, § 28

Is Chapter VII greater than the sum of its parts?

Article 39 The Security Council shall determine the

existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 41 The Security Council may decide what

measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations

Does the ICTY satisfy the requirement that a tribunal must be “established by law”? Required by articles 14 ICCPR, 6(1) ECHR,

8(1) ACHR and therefore a general principle of law as recognised by civilised nations

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE ICTY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Jurisdiction of the ICTY according to its Statute:

Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (Art. 2)

Violations of the laws and customs of war (Art. 3)

Genocide (Art. 4) Crimes against humanity (Art. 5)

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE ICTY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Report of the Secretary-General on the establishment of the ICTY, 3 May 1993, § 34:

“The application of the principle nullum crimen sine lege requires that the international tribunal should apply rules of international humanitarian law which are beyond any doubt part of customary international law so that the problem of adherence of some but not all States to specific conventions does not arise.”

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE ICTY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Case law can have important effects on the development of IL insofar as it:

interprets and clarifies existing custom and

identifies new emergent custom

addresses legal lacunae, adds flesh to the bare bones of treaty provisions or to broad legal concepts, e.g. proportionality

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE ICTY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE ICTY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

War Crimes:

1. Custom in non-international armed conflicts

2. The Question of criminalization

Evidence for custom cited by the Tadic case: Military manuals of a couple of countries Criminal code of the Social Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia Security Council Resolutions

4. WHAT NEXT?

Proliferation of international and internationalised tribunals: International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia

(1993) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

(1994) The International Criminal Court (Statute

adopted 1998, ratified 2002) Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002) Cambodia Tribunal (∼2006) Special Tribunal for Lebanon (2009)

LA JUSTICE PÉNALE INTERNATIONALE COMME INSTRUMENT DE PROMOTION DE LA PAIX?

Élargissement des mandats des tribunaux : non seulement en vue de punir mais aussi avec le but de rétablir la paix, réconcilier la société, établir la « vérité » …

La justice pénale internationale

intervenant au cours du conflit ou seulement après le conflit