Impunity

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Impunity is the ability to act with exemption from punishments, losses, or other negative consequences. [1] In the international law of human rights, impunity is failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a denial of the victims' right to justice and redress. Impunity is especially common in countries which lack the tradition of rule of law, or suffer from pervasive corruption, or contain entrenched systems of patronage, or where the judiciary is weak or members of the security forces are protected by special jurisdictions or immunities. Impunity is sometimes considered a form of denialism of historical crimes. [2]

Contents

Examples

The Armenian genocide was fueled by impunity for the perpetrators of earlier massacres of Armenians, such as the 1890s Hamidian massacres. [3] After the genocide, the Treaty of Sèvres required Turkey to allow the return of refugees and enable them to recover their properties. However, Turkey did not allow the return of refugees and nationalized all Armenian properties. [4] A secret annex to the Treaty of Lausanne granted immunity to the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and put an end to the effort to prosecute Ottoman war criminals. [5] [6] [7] [8] Hardly anyone was prosecuted for the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. [9] According to historian Stefan Ihrig, the failure to intervene and hold perpetrators accountable made the genocide the "double original sin" of the twentieth century. [10]

Human rights principles

The amended Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity , submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 8 February 2005, defines impunity as:

the impossibility, de jure or de facto , of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account – whether in criminal, civil, administrative or disciplinary proceedings – since they are not subject to any inquiry that might lead to their being accused, arrested, tried and, if found guilty, sentenced to appropriate penalties, and to making reparations to their victims. [11]

The First Principle of that same document states that:

Impunity arises from a failure by States to meet their obligations to investigate violations; to take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators, particularly in the area of justice, by ensuring that those suspected of criminal responsibility are prosecuted, tried and duly punished; to provide victims with effective remedies and to ensure that they receive reparation for the injuries suffered; to ensure the inalienable right to know the truth about violations; and to take other necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of violations.

Truth commissions are frequently established by nations emerging from periods marked by human rights violations – coups d'état, military dictatorships, civil wars, etc. – in order to cast light on the events of the past. While such mechanisms can assist in the ultimate prosecution of crimes and punishment of the guilty, they have often been criticised for perpetuating impunity by enabling violators to seek protection of concurrently adopted amnesty laws. [12]

The primary goal of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted on 17 July 1998 and entered into force on 1 July 2002, is "to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators" [...] "of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole". [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Lausanne</span> 1923 peace treaty between Turkey and Allies

The Treaty of Lausanne is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–23 and signed in the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially resolved the conflict that had initially arisen between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied French Republic, British Empire, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Romania since the outset of World War I. The original text of the treaty is in English and French. It emerged as a second attempt at peace after the failed and unratified Treaty of Sèvres, which had sought to partition Ottoman territories. The earlier treaty, signed in 1920, was later rejected by the Turkish National Movement which actively opposed its terms. As a result of the Greco-Turkish War, İzmir was reclaimed, and the Armistice of Mudanya was signed in October 1922. This armistice provided for the exchange of Greek-Turkish populations and allowed unrestricted civilian, non-military passage through the Turkish Straits.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes against humanity</span> Concept in international law

Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law, and like other crimes against international law have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide</span> 1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire

The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor's justice</span> Pejorative term

Victor's justice is a term which is used in reference to a distorted application of justice to the defeated party by the victorious party after an armed conflict. Victor's justice generally involves the excessive or unjustified punishment of defeated parties and the light punishment of or clemency for offenses which have been committed by victors. Victors' justice can be used in reference to manifestations of a difference in rules which can amount to hypocrisy and revenge or retributive justice leading to injustice. Victors' justice may also refer to a misrepresentation of historical recording of the events and actions of the losing party throughout or preceding the conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Sèvres</span> 1920 treaty between Ottomans and Allies, not implemented

The Treaty of Sèvres was a 1920 treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty ceded large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties that the Central Powers signed with the Allied Powers after their defeat in World War I. Hostilities had already ended with the Armistice of Mudros.

<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">Wilsonian Armenia</span> 1920 proposed boundaries of Armenia

Wilsonian Armenia was the unimplemented boundary configuration of the First Republic of Armenia in the Treaty of Sèvres, as drawn by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Department of State. The Treaty of Sèvres was a peace treaty that had been drafted and signed between the Western Allied Powers and the defeated government of the Ottoman Empire in August 1920, but it was never ratified and was subsequently superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne. The proposed boundaries of Wilsonian Armenia incorporated portions of the Ottoman vilayets of Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, and Trabzon, which had Armenian populations of varying sizes. The inclusion of portions of Trabzon Vilayet was intended to provide the First Republic of Armenia with an outlet to the Black Sea at the port of Trabzon. A proposed Republic of Pontus was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, but the Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos feared the precarious position of such a state, so a portion of it was instead included in the proposed state of Wilsonian Armenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide denial</span> Fringe theory that the Armenian genocide did not occur

Armenian genocide denial is the claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime documented in a large body of evidence and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars. The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out, claiming that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were resettled for military reasons, not exterminated. In the genocide's aftermath, incriminating documents were systematically destroyed, and denial has been the policy of every government of the Republic of Turkey, as of 2023, and later adopted by the Republic of Azerbaijan, as of 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Istanbul trials of 1919–1920</span> Courts-martial of the Ottoman Empire

The Istanbul trials of 1919–1920 were courts-martial of the Ottoman Empire that occurred soon after the Armistice of Mudros, in the aftermath of World War I.

After World War I, the effort to prosecute Ottoman war criminals was taken up by the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and ultimately included in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government organized a series of courts martial in 1919–1920 to prosecute war criminals, but these failed on account of political pressure. The main effort by the Allied administration that occupied Constantinople fell short of establishing an international tribunal in Malta to try the so-called Malta exiles, Ottoman war criminals held as POWs by the British forces in Malta. In the end, no tribunals were held in Malta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leipzig war crimes trials</span> Series of trials at the end of World War I

The Leipzig war crimes trials were held in 1921 to try alleged German war criminals of the First World War before the German Reichsgericht in Leipzig, as part of the penalties imposed on the German government under the Treaty of Versailles. Twelve people were tried, and the proceedings were widely regarded at the time as a failure. In the longer term, they were seen by some as a significant step toward the introduction of a comprehensive system for the prosecution of international law violations.

The issue of Armenian genocide reparations derives from the Armenian genocide of 1915 committed by the Ottoman Empire. Such reparations might be of financial, estate or territorial nature, and could cover individual or collective claims as well as those by Armenia. The majority of scholars of international law agree that Turkey is the successor state or continuation of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the Republic of Turkey continued the Ottoman Empire's internationally wrongful acts against Armenians, such as confiscation of Armenian properties and massacres. Former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, Professor Alfred de Zayas, Geneva School of Diplomacy, stated that "[b]ecause of the continuing character of the crime of genocide in factual and legal terms, the remedy of restitution has not been foreclosed by the passage of time".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape during the Armenian genocide</span> 1915–1917 war crimes in the Ottoman Empire

During the Armenian genocide, which occurred in the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of the CUP, Armenian women in the Ottoman Empire were targets of a systematic campaign of genocidal rape, and other acts of violence against women described by scholars as "instruments of genocide" including kidnapping, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation and forced marriage into the perpetrator group.

At the conclusion of his Obersalzberg Speech on 22 August 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler reportedly said "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide and the Holocaust</span> Comparison of genocides

The relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust has been discussed by scholars. The majority of scholars believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, however, some of them do not believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the two genocides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Right to truth</span> Right for victims to know what happened

Right to truth is the right, in the case of grave violations of human rights, for the victims and their families or societies to have access to the truth of what happened. The right to truth is closely related to, but distinct from, the state obligation to investigate and prosecute serious state violations of human rights. Right to truth is a form of victims' rights; it is especially relevant to transitional justice in dealing with past abuses of human rights. In 2006, Yasmin Naqvi concluded that the right to truth "stands somewhere on the threshold of a legal norm and a narrative device ... somewhere above a good argument and somewhere below a clear legal rule".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Talaat Pasha</span> 1921 assassination in Berlin, Germany

On 15 March 1921, Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated Talaat Pasha—former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire and the main architect of the Armenian genocide—in Berlin. At his trial, Tehlirian argued, "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer"; the jury acquitted him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May 1915 Triple Entente declaration</span> Declaration condemning the Armenian Genocide

On 24 May 1915, on the initiative of Russia, the Triple Entente—Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—issued a declaration condemning the ongoing Armenian genocide carried out in the Ottoman Empire and threatening to hold the perpetrators accountable. This was the first use of the phrase "crimes against humanity" in international diplomacy, which later became a category of international criminal law after World War II.

References

  1. ↑ "Free Dictionary". Free Dictionary. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  2. ↑ Avakian, Paul (2018). "Denial in Other Forms". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 12 (1): 3–23. doi: 10.5038/1911-9933.12.1.1512 . ISSN   1911-0359.
  3. ↑ Dadrian, Vahakn N. (2003). The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Berghahn Books. p. 386. ISBN   978-1-57181-666-5.
  4. ↑ Matossian, Bedross Der (2011). "The Taboo within the Taboo: The Fate of 'Armenian Capital' at the End of the Ottoman Empire". European Journal of Turkish Studies. Social Sciences on Contemporary Turkey (in French). doi: 10.4000/ejts.4411 . ISSN   1773-0546.
  5. ↑ Scharf, Michael (1996). "The Letter of the Law: The Scope of the International Legal Obligation to Prosecute Human Rights Crimes". Law and Contemporary Problems. 59 (4): 41–61. doi:10.2307/1192189. ISSN   0023-9186. JSTOR   1192189. Initially, the Allied Powers sought the prosecution of those responsible for the massacres. The Treaty of Sevres, which was signed on August 10, 1920, would have required the Turkish Government to hand over those responsible to the Allied Powers for trial. Treaty of Peace between the Allied Powers and Turkey [Treaty of Sevres], art. 230, at 235, Aug. 10, 1920, reprinted in 15 AM. J. INT'L L. 179 (Supp 1921). "The Treaty of Sevres was, however, not ratified and did not come into force. It was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne, which not only did not contain provisions respecting the punishment of war crimes, but was accompanied by a 'Declaration of Amnesty' of all offenses committed between 1914 and 1922." Treaty of Peace between the Allied Powers and Turkey [Treaty of Lausanne], July 24, 1923, League of Nations Treaty Series 11, reprinted in 18 AM. J. INT'L L. 1 (Supp. 1924). 99.
  6. ↑ Bassiouni, M. Cherif (2010). "Crimes Against Humanity: The Case for a Specialized Convention". Washington University Global Studies Law Review. 9 (4): 575–593. ISSN   1546-6981. During World War I (WWI) (1914-18), almost twenty million people were killed... During that conflict, one situation stood out: the estimated 200,000-800,000 civilian Armenians killed in 1915. (4) In 1919, the Inter-Allied Commission (save for the U.S. and Japan) called for the prosecution of Turkish officials responsible. (5) That call was advanced on the basis of the 1907 Hague Convention's preamble referring to "the laws of humanity." (6) However, no prosecutions ensued. Instead, Turkey received immunity in a secret annex of the Treaty of Lausanne. (7)
  7. ↑ Dadrian, Vahakn (1998). "The Historical and Legal Interconnections Between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust: From Impunity to Retributive Justice". Yale Journal of International Law. 23 (2). ISSN   0889-7743. The delayed peace settlement is, of course, the Lausanne Treaty. Yielding to the pressures of the implacable Kemalists, the victorious Allies abjectly discarded the two-year-old S~vres Treaty,26 through which they had attempted to prosecute and punish the authors of the Armenian genocide and, at the same time, redeem their promises for a future Armenia. After expunging all references to Armenian massacres (and, indeed, to Armenia itself) from the draft version,27 they signed the Lausanne Peace Treaty, thus helping to codify impunity by ignoring the Armenian genocide. The international law flowing from this treaty, while a sham in reality, lent an aura of respectability to impunity because the imprimatur of a peace conference was attached to it. A French jurist observed that the treaty was an "assurance" for impunity for the crime of massacre; indeed, it was a "glorification" of the crime in which an entire race, the Armenians, was "systematically exterminated." 2 " For his part, David Lloyd George, wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain, found it appropriate to vent his ire when he was out of power: He declared the Western Allies' conduct at the Lausanne Conference to be "abject, cowardly and infamous." 29 A creature of political deal-making, the Lausanne Treaty was a triumph of the principle of impunity over the principle of retributive justice.
  8. ↑ Penrose, Mary (1999). "Impunity- Inertia, Inaction, and Invalidity: A Literature Review". Boston University International Law Journal. 17: 269. Beginning with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the award of amnesty to defeated forces has often been the political price paid for achieving a cessation of hostilities.
  9. ↑ Kuyumjian, Aram (2011). "The Armenian Genocide : International Legal and Political Avenues for Turkey's Responsibility" (PDF). Revue de Droit. 41 (2). Université de Sherbrooke: 247–305. doi: 10.17118/11143/10302 .
  10. ↑ Ihrig, Stefan (2016). Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler . Harvard University Press. p. 7. ISBN   978-0-674-50479-0.
  11. ↑ "Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity". Derechos.org. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  12. ↑ "What Next for International Justice?" International Center for Transitional Justice
  13. ↑ "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court". legal.un.org. Retrieved 13 December 2022.

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