Frederick K. Cox International Law Center

Last updated
Officers
Prof. Michael P. Scharf (professor), Director
Prof. Jacqueline Lipton, Associate Director
Prof. Robert Strassfeld, Associate Director
Aylin Drabousky, Manager for Programming

The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center is a research center founded at Case Western Reserve University School of Law that focuses on the legal study of international law. The Center sponsors conferences, visiting lecturers, the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, the Case Western Reserve team for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the Summer Institute for Global Justice, and the War Crimes Research Office. Members of the Center do research and write books, articles, and weblogs, for which the Center holds the specification.

Contents

The Cox Center was established in 1991 with a multimillion-dollar special endowment by The George Gund Foundation. The Cox Center has also received endowment money and grants from Bruce J. Klatsky, the Wolf Family Foundation, the Yanowitz Family Foundation, and the Open Society Institute.

War Crimes Research Office

Founded in 2002, the War Crimes Research Office undertakes research projects for five war crimes tribunals and other international organizations, hosts a war crimes trial blog and e-newsletter, and sponsors an annual war crimes research symposium.

Research Projects

The War Crimes Research Portal “contains over a thousand links to websites related to international humanitarian law which are arranged alphabetically by subject area including a summary of each site. Keyword searching is available. A very special feature is the access it provides to … research memoranda on issues pending before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, [the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,] and the International Criminal Court. Analysis articles and a bibliography are also provided.” [1]

Blog

The Grotian Moment blog, established in September 2005, is a source of expert advice on war crimes trials such as the trial of Saddam Hussein. [2] It features essays by a panel of experts on developments related to major war crimes trials, as well as newspaper articles, and documents related to the tribunals.

Newsletter

The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center contributes, together with Public International Law & Policy Group, to the preparation of "War Crimes Prosecution Watch", a biweekly compilation of official documents and articles about the investigation and prosecution of war crimes. It is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Open Society Institute. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</span> 1993–2017 Netherlands-based United Nations ad hoc court

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal was an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands.

Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states or international organizations to claim criminal jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where the alleged crime was committed, and regardless of the accused's nationality, country of residence, or any other relation to the prosecuting entity. Crimes prosecuted under universal jurisdiction are considered crimes against all, too serious to tolerate jurisdictional arbitrage. The concept of universal jurisdiction is therefore closely linked to the idea that some international norms are erga omnes, or owed to the entire world community, as well as to the concept of jus cogens – that certain international law obligations are binding on all states.

The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal and sometimes referred to as the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, is a body established under Iraqi national law to try Iraqi nationals or residents accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. It organized the trial of Saddam Hussein and other members of his Ba'ath Party regime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flick trial</span> 1947 war crimes trial against German industrialist Friedrich Flick

The United States of America vs. Friedrich Flick, et al. or Flick trial was the fifth of twelve Nazi war crimes trials held by United States authorities in their occupation zone in Germany (Nuremberg) after World War II. It was the first of three trials of leading industrialists of Nazi Germany; the two others were the IG Farben Trial and the Krupp Trial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry T. King</span> American lawyer

Henry T. King Jr. was an attorney who served as a U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-47. Late in his career, he became a law professor and an activist, writer, and lecturer working on international law and war crimes; David M. Crane has described King as "the George Washington of modern international law".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International criminal law</span> Public international law

International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trial of Saddam Hussein</span> 2005–2006 trial by the Iraqi Interim Government

The trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Command responsibility</span> Doctrine of hierarchical accountability

In the practice of international law, command responsibility is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes, whereby a commanding officer (military) and a superior officer (civil) is legally responsible for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by his subordinates; thus, a commanding officer always is accountable for the acts of commission and the acts of omission of his soldiers.

Gregory Paw served as the Director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice from February 21, 2006 to June 20, 2008. Paw succeeded Vaughn McCoy as Director, and was succeeded as Director by Deborah Gramiccioni, with whom he had worked closely while she was a special assistant to the New Jersey Attorney General. Paw is now a partner in the law firm of Pepper Hamilton, practicing white collar criminal defense and corporate compliance in the firm's Princeton and Philadelphia offices.

The Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law is a legal journal produced by student editors at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1968, and published three times per year by student editors until 2015, when the journal became annual. The journal includes symposia-based, scholarly articles and transcripts of speeches that address topics of international legal significance.

Robert Petit is a Canadian lawyer who during 2006 and 2009 was the International Co-Prosecutor for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which is aiming to try Khmer Rouge leaders for violations of international criminal law in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. He led the investigation and prosecution of five senior most leaders of the Khmer Rouge namely Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan, and Kang Kek Iew. The last was recently convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Petit also initiated the prosecution of five other Khmer Rouge leaders whose cases are still under investigation by the United Nations-backed tribunal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint criminal enterprise</span> Concept in international criminal law

Joint criminal enterprise (JCE) is a legal doctrine used during war crimes tribunals to allow the prosecution of members of a group for the actions of the group. This doctrine considers each member of an organized group individually responsible for crimes committed by group within the common plan or purpose. It arose through the application of the idea of common purpose and has been applied by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to prosecute political and military leaders for mass war crimes, including genocide, committed during the Yugoslav Wars 1991–1999.

Gabrielle Anne Kirk McDonald is an American lawyer and jurist who, until her retirement in October 2013, served as an American arbitrator on the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal seated in The Hague.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Scharf</span>

Michael P. Scharf is co-dean, Joseph C. Hostetler – BakerHostetler professor of law, and the director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Scharf is also co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a non-governmental organization (NGO) which provides pro bono legal assistance to developing states and states in transition. Since 1995 PILPG has provided pro bono legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals. Since March 2012, Scharf has also been the producer and host of Talking Foreign Policy, a one-hour radio program aired on a quarterly basis on Cleveland’s NPR affiliate WCPN 90.3 ideastream.

The Supreme National Tribunal was a war-crime tribunal active in communist-era Poland from 1946 to 1948. Its aims and purpose were defined by the State National Council in decrees of 22 January and 17 October 1946 and 11 April 1947. The new law was based on an earlier decree of 31 August 1944 issued by the new Soviet-imposed Polish regime, with jurisdiction over "fascist-Hitlerite criminals and traitors to the Polish nation". The Tribunal presided over seven high-profile cases involving a total of 49 individuals.

Silvana Arbia was previously the Registrar of the International Criminal Court. After gaining experience as a judge and prosecutor in Italy, Arbia made her international début as a Senior Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles A. Adeogun-Phillips</span> English lawyer

Charles Ayodeji Adeogun-Phillips is a former United Nations genocide and war crimes prosecutor, international lawyer and founder of Charles Anthony (Lawyers) LLP.

Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.

The judiciary of Iraq is a branch of the government of Iraq that interprets and applies the laws of Iraq, to ensure equal justice under law, and provides a mechanism for dispute resolution. The judiciary is composed of the Higher Judicial Council, the Supreme Court, the Court of Cassation, the Public Prosecution Department, the Judiciary Oversight Commission, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, the Central Criminal Court and other courts that are regulated by law.

The proposed International Criminal Tribunal for the Russian Federation is a proposed ad hoc international criminal tribunal aimed at prosecuting the Russian Federation and senior Russian and Belarusian leaders for the Russian invasions of Ukraine as one or more crimes of aggression, as a complement to the existing International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine. Several international bodies announced their support for its establishment, including the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament.

References

  1. Harvard Law School Library “Research Relating to Terrorism.”
  2. Dymond, J. (February 3, 2006.) “New dynamic to Saddam’s trial.” BBC News.
  3. "War Crimes Prosecution Watch". PILPG. Archived from the original on 2013-06-19. Retrieved 2013-04-14.