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.
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.
A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a single judge could describe that judge as "their tribunal." Many governmental bodies are titled "tribunals" to emphasize that they are not courts of normal jurisdiction. For example, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was a body specially constituted under international law; in Great Britain, employment tribunals are bodies set up to hear specific employment disputes. In many cases, the word tribunal implies a judicial body with a lesser degree of formality than a court, in which the normal rules of evidence and procedure may not apply, and whose presiding officers are frequently neither judges nor magistrates. Private judicial bodies are also often styled "tribunals." The word tribunal, however, is not conclusive of a body's function—for example, in Great Britain, the Employment Appeal Tribunal is a superior court of record.
International courts are formed by treaties between nations or under the authority of an international organization such as the United Nations and include ad hoc tribunals and permanent institutions but exclude any courts arising purely under national authority.
Hague Tribunal is a popular name for any of the various international courts located in The Hague, Netherlands:
The subsequent Nuremberg trials were twelve military tribunals for war crimes committed by the leaders of Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The Nuremberg Military Tribunals occurred after the Nuremberg trials, held by the International Military Tribunal, which concluded in October 1946. The subsequent Nuremberg trials were held by U.S. military courts and dealt with the cases of crimes against humanity committed by the business community of Nazi Germany, specifically the crimes of using slave labor and plundering occupied countries, and the war-crime cases of Wehrmacht officers who committed atrocities against Allied prisoners of war, partisans, and guerrillas.
Non bis in idem which translates literally from Latin as 'not twice in the same [thing]', is a legal doctrine to the effect that no legal action can be instituted twice for the same cause of action. It is a legal concept originating in Roman civil law, but it is essentially the equivalent of the double jeopardy doctrine found in common law jurisdictions, and similar peremptory plea in some modern civil law countries.
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.
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.
The judiciaries of the United Kingdom are the separate judiciaries of the three legal systems in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, Employment Tribunals, Employment Appeal Tribunal and the UK tribunals system do have a United Kingdom–wide jurisdiction but judgments only apply directly to the jurisdiction from which a case originates as the same case points and principles do not inevitably apply in the other jurisdictions. In employment law, employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal have jurisdiction in the whole of Great Britain.
A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict.
Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, or the civilian population, should not be considered guilty of committing actions that were ordered by a superior officer or official.
German military law has a long history.
Peter von Hagenbach, also Pierre de Hagenbach, Pietro di Hagenbach, Pierre d'Archambaud, or Pierre d'Aquenbacq, was a Burgundian knight from Alsace, German military and civil commander, and convicted war criminal. The trial of Hagenbach was the first known trial of a war crime in history.
The Judiciary of Indonesia constitutionally consists of the Supreme Court of Indonesia, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia, and the lesser court system under the Supreme Court. These lesser courts are categorically subdivided into the public courts, religious courts, state administrative courts, and military courts.
United Nations Security Council resolution 808, adopted unanimously on 22 February 1993, after reaffirming Resolution 713 (1991) and subsequent resolutions on the situation in former Yugoslavia, including resolutions 764 (1992), 771 (1992) and 780 (1992), the council, after stating its determination to put an end to crimes such as ethnic cleansing and other violations of international humanitarian law, decided that an international tribunal should be established for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in former Yugoslavia since 1991. This later became known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Brenda J. Hollis is an American lawyer. She was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in February 2010, replacing Stephen Rapp. Hollis was the Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court and served as the lead prosecutor in the trial and appeal of the case against Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia. Hollis previously served as the Prosecutor of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone, which replaced the Special Court in December 2013; currently James Johnson, an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, serves as the Chief Prosecutor for the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. She also serves as the Reserve International Co-Prosecutor for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and works as a consultant in international criminal law and procedure.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1855 was unanimously adopted on 19 December 2008.
The Office of Global Criminal Justice (J/GCJ), formerly called the Office of War Crimes Issues (S/WCI), is an office within the United States Department of State.
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.
