The International Criminal Court is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague,Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide,crimes against humanity,war crimes and the crime of aggression. It is distinct from the International Court of Justice,an organ of the United Nations that hears disputes between states.
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.
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic criminal acts which are committed by or on behalf of a de facto authority,usually by or on behalf of a state,that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes,crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the context of wars,and they apply to widespread practices rather than acts which are committed by individuals. Although crimes against humanity apply to acts which are committed by or on behalf of authorities,they do not need to be part of an official policy,and they only need to be tolerated by authorities. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials. Initially considered for legal use,widely in international law,following the Holocaust,a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violations of human rights norms,as they are listed in the Declaration,are expressions of the political pathologies which are associated with crimes against humanity.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome,Italy on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of November 2019,123 states are party to the statute. Among other things,it establishes court function,jurisdiction and structure.
The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.
David Pratt is a Canadian former politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Nepean—Carleton from 1997 until 2004.
International humanitarian law (IHL),also referred to as the laws of armed conflict,is the law that regulates the conduct of war. It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by protecting persons who are not participating in hostilities and by restricting and regulating the means and methods of warfare available to combatants.
Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni was an Egyptian-American emeritus professor of law at DePaul University,where he taught from 1964 to 2012. He served in numerous United Nations positions and served as the consultant to the US Department of State and Justice on many projects. He was a founding member of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University which was established in 1990. He served as president from 1990 to 1997 and then as president emeritus. Bassiouni is often referred to by the media as "the Godfather of International Criminal Law" and a "war crimes expert". As such,he served on the Steering Committee for The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative,which was launched to study the need for a comprehensive convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity,and draft a proposed treaty. He spearheaded the drafting of the proposed convention,which as of 2014 is being debated at the International Law Commission.
Lyal S. Sunga is a well-known specialist on international human rights law,international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
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.
The Faculty of Law at Universitéde Montréal was officially founded in 1892. In 2018,the Faculty was ranked as the best francophone law school in the world. In addition to its civil law degree (LL.B.),the Law School offers a one-year J.D. in common law for Quebec civil law graduates that enables them to take the bar exam in other Canadian provinces and in New York,Massachusetts and California.
Justice James Ogoola is the former Principal Judge of the High Court of Uganda and a Justice of the COMESA Court of Justice in Lusaka,Zambia. He is the also the former chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission of Uganda. Previously,he served as the chairman of the commission of inquiry into the mismanagement of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,Tuberculosis and Malaria. He was an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of Uganda. He is a member of The East African Court of Justice.
William Anthony Schabas,OC is a Canadian academic specialising in international criminal and human rights law. He is professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom,professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands,and an internationally respected expert on human rights law,genocide and the death penalty. Schabas has been described as "the world expert on the law of genocide and international law."
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties,and three additional protocols,that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949,negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945),which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners,civilians and military personnel,established protections for the wounded and sick,and provided protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.
An atrocity crime is a violation of international criminal law that falls under the historically three legally defined international crimes of genocide,war crimes,and crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is widely regarded as a fourth mass atrocity crime by legal scholars and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field,despite not yet being recognized as an independent crime under international law.
Árpád Prandler was a Hungarian jurist who served as an Ad Litem Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in The Hague,Netherlands between 2006 and 2013.
Alan Baker is an Israeli expert in international law and former ambassador of the state of Israel to Canada. He is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former partner in the Tel Aviv law firm of Moshe,Bloomfield,Kobo,Baker &Co. He was a military prosecutor and senior legal adviser in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and represented the Ministry of Defense at international conferences,and then joined the Foreign Ministry as legal adviser. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of agreements and peace treaties with Egypt,Jordan,Lebanon and the Palestinians. In January 2012 he was appointed by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to the three member committee chaired by former Justice Edmund Levy to examine the legal aspects of land ownership in the West Bank. The committee's report,referred to as Levy Report,was published by the Israeli government in Hebrew in July 2012.
Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University School of Law and the former Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. She has served as Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court since December 12,2012. Sadat is the Director of The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative,a multi-year project to study the problem of crimes against humanity and draft a comprehensive convention addressing their punishment and prevention. She has spearheaded the international effort to establish this new global convention. In 2012 Sadat was elected to membership in the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations,and in 2018 was elected as the President of the American Branch of the International Law Association for a two-year term in October 2018.
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict was a United Nations fact-finding mission established by a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 23 July 2014 to investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law …in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014" in the Palestinian territories,particularly the Gaza Strip,during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.
Liesbeth Zegveld is a Dutch lawyer,legal expert and professor.
