International Criminal Court Essay -- United Nations Papers

International Criminal Court Allegations of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity have undoubtedly received unprecedented press coverage in recent years – more than at any time since Nuremberg. This is not because the incidences of such barbarities have increased, but simply because those crimes are brought to us more rapidly these days by the electronic media. Since the early 1990’s the international community has witnessed of a variety of criminal tribunals that were meant to promote peace-making and political transition in situations of gross violations of human rights and armed conflict among ethnical or religious groups. This tendency led to the establishment by the UN of two ad hoc Tribunals-for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda-and of the International Criminal Court (ICC). There was also a proliferation of 'mixed' judicial bodies-in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor-composed of both national and international judges and enforcing domestic as well as international criminal law. It is perhaps most cynical to assert that transitional societies, convalescing from conflict or moving from oppression towards democracy, have developed a variety of ways of dealing with past war crimes and human rights abuses. Irrefutably they have united the short-term and long-term goals of ending the conflict and preventing its recurrence, and achieving social stability and reconciliation. Almost a century after the idea for such a body had first been mooted, on 17 July 1998, to the acclaim of many; a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) was born at last in Rome. The adoption on that day of the Court's Statute... ...rnatives to prosecution it is difficult to express a preference among them, other than the vague notion that "perhaps the challenge is to meet a basic need for balance and wholeness." Neither the "one size fits all" prosecutorial strategy, nor a uniform preference for amnesty or some non-juridical alternative in every case, would be justifiable. Circumstances differ, and circumstances matter. Atrocities, whether committed abroad or at home, are almost by definition highly unusual. For precisely that reason, their resolutions should be too. Ironically, perhaps, a court that is very similar to these from a legal point of view is likely to soon be established in Iraq. You make some good and thought-provoking points, but your language is not always as clear as it might be. Clarity is of supreme importance in law!