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 prosecute individuals for serious crimes,such as genocide,war crimes,and crimes against humanity,regardless of where the crime was committed and irrespective of the accused's nationality or residence. Rooted in the belief that certain offenses are so heinous that they threaten the international community as a whole,universal jurisdiction holds that such acts are beyond the scope of any single nation's laws. Instead,these crimes are considered to violate norms owed to the global community and fundamental principles of international law,making them prosecutable in any court that invokes this principle.
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.
Pierre-Richard Prosper is an American lawyer,prosecutor and former government official. He served as the second United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.
The United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice is the head of the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the United States Department of State. The ambassador-at-large advises the United States Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security,Democracy,and Human Rights directly and formulates U.S. policy responses to atrocities committed in areas of conflict and elsewhere throughout the world. As the President’s envoy,this Ambassador travels worldwide engaging heads of state and international organizations to build bilateral and international support for U.S. policies. As part of this,the Ambassador visits affected countries and engages a range of diplomatic,legal,economic,military,and intelligence tools to help secure peace and stability and build the rule of law. As the head of the Office of Global Criminal Justice,this Ambassador also has the rank of Assistant Secretary.
Carla Del Ponte is a Swiss former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general,she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in August 1999,replacing Louise Arbour.
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.
Gregory H. Stanton is the former research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the George Mason University in Fairfax County,Virginia,United States. He is best known for his work in the area of genocide studies. He is the founder and president of Genocide Watch,the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project,and the Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. From 2007 to 2009 he was the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
The Völkerstrafgesetzbuch,abbreviated VStGB,is a German law that regulates crimes against (public) international law. It allows cases to be brought against suspects under international criminal law provisions,meaning that suspects can be prosecuted even though both they and their victims are foreigners and the crime itself took place abroad.
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 (ICTY) to prosecute political and military leaders for mass war crimes,including genocide,committed during the Yugoslav Wars 1991–1999.
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.
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.
United Nations Security Council resolution 955,adopted on 8 November 1994,after recalling all resolutions on Rwanda,the Council noted that serious violations of international humanitarian law had taken place in the country and,acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter,established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
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 Atrocities Prevention Board (APB) is an interagency committee consisting of U.S. officials from the National Security Council,the Departments of State,Defense,Justice,and Treasury,the U.S. Agency for International Development,and the U.S. Intelligence Community. The board meets monthly to assess the long-term risks of atrocities around the world.
Prevention of genocide is any action that works toward averting future genocides. Genocides take a lot of planning,resources,and involved parties to carry out,they do not just happen instantaneously. Scholars in the field of genocide studies have identified a set of widely agreed upon risk factors that make a country or social group more at risk of carrying out a genocide,which include a wide range of political and cultural factors that create a context in which genocide is more likely,such as political upheaval or regime change,as well as psychological phenomena that can be manipulated and taken advantage of in large groups of people,like conformity and cognitive dissonance. Genocide prevention depends heavily on the knowledge and surveillance of these risk factors,as well as the identification of early warning signs of genocide beginning to occur.
Incitement to genocide is a crime under international law which prohibits inciting (encouraging) the commission of genocide. An extreme form of hate speech,incitement to genocide is an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur,although charges have never been brought in an international court without mass violence having occurred. "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" was forbidden by the Genocide Convention in 1948. Incitement to genocide is often cloaked in metaphor and euphemism and may take many forms beyond direct advocacy,including dehumanization and accusation in a mirror.
Gregory S. Gordon is an American professor and scholar of international law and former Legal Officer for the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR. Gordon is known for his academic work calling for the criminalization under international law of a broader category of speech likely to cause and/or fuel mass atrocities,and his book Atrocity Speech Law:Foundation,Fragmentation,Fruition in which he advances this argument.
Beth Van Schaack is an American attorney and academic who serves as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice.
