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. The ICC 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 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.
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 February 2024,124 states are party to the statute. Among other things,it establishes court function,jurisdiction and structure.
The law of war is a component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war and the conduct of hostilities. Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood,states and territories,occupation,and other critical terms of law.
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.
Edmund Ho Hau Wah,GOIH,GML,GCM is a Macau politician who served as the first Chief Executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region from 1999 to 2009. He currently serves as a Vice-Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
David Pratt is a former Canadian 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.
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 crimes that were ordered by a superior officer or official.
The Faculty of Law at Universitéde Montréal in Canada 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.
Kimberly Prost is a Canadian jurist currently serving as a judge of the International Criminal Court,assigned to the Trial Division. She was elected to a nine-year term on December 5,2017,was sworn in on March 9,2018,and assumed full-time duty on June 11,2018.
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.
The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention colloquially 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;establish protections for the wounded and sick;and provide 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.
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.
