The International Criminal Court (ICC) 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. Established in 2002 pursuant to the multilateral Rome Statute,the ICC is considered by its proponents to be a major step toward justice,and an innovation in international law and human rights.
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 universally morally reprehensible and 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.
Richard Joseph Goldstone is a South African retired judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from July 1994 to October 2003. He joined the bench as a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa,first in the Transvaal Provincial Division from 1980 to 1989 and then in the Appellate Division from 1990 to 1994. Before that,he was a commercial lawyer in Johannesburg,where he entered legal practice in 1963 and took silk in 1976.
The Bosnian genocide took place during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 and included both the Srebrenica massacre and the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys,as well as the mass expulsion of another 25000–30000 Bosniak civilians by VRS units under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
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.
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.
Karim Asad Ahmad Khan is a British lawyer specialising in international criminal law and international human rights law,who has served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since 2021.
Gabrielle Anne Kirk McDonald is an American lawyer and jurist who,until her retirement in October 2013,served as an American arbitrator on the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal seated in The Hague.
The Dalj massacre was the killing of Croats in Dalj,Croatia from 1 August 1991 until June 1992,during the Croatian War of Independence. In addition to civilian victims,the figure includes 20 Croatian policemen,15 Croatian National Guard troops and four civil defencemen who had been defending the police station and water supply building in the village on 1 August 1991. While some of the policemen and the ZNG troops died in combat,those who surrendered were killed after they became prisoners of war. They tried to fight off an attack by the Croatian Serb SAO Eastern Slavonia,Baranja and Western Syrmia Territorial Defence Forces,supported by the Yugoslav People's Army and the Serb Volunteer Guard paramilitaries. The SAO SBWS was declared an autonomous territory in eastern Croatia following the Battle of Borovo Selo just to the south of Dalj.
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.
O-Gon Kwon is a South Korean jurist,best known for being one of the three judges in the trial of Slobodan Milošević. He also sat on the bench for the trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić.
Sir Geoffrey Nice KC is a British barrister and former part-time judge. In the 1983 United Kingdom general election and the 1987 United Kingdom general election,he was the unsuccessful Social Democratic Party candidate for Dover. He took part in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and was lead prosecutor at Slobodan Milošević's 2002 trial.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1931,adopted unanimously on June 29,2010,after recalling resolutions 827 (1993),1581 (2005),1597 (2005),1613 (2005),1629 (2005),1660 (2006),1668 (2006),1800 (2008),1837 (2008),1849 (2008),1877 (2009),1900 (2009) and 1915 (2010),the Council noted that the 2010 target for the completion of trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) could not be met,and therefore extended the terms of 23 judges at the ICTY.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1481,adopted unanimously on 19 May 2003,after recalling resolutions 827 (1993),1166 (1998),1329 (2000),1411 (2002) and 1431 (2002),the Council amended the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to allow temporary judges to adjudicate in pre-trial proceedings in other cases before their appointment to a trial.
The thematic debate on the role of international criminal justice in reconciliation is an interactive thematic public debate convened on 10 April 2013 by Vuk Jeremić,President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) during the assembly's 67th session. The debate was organized after the conclusion of the Trial of Gotovina et al at the ICTY in which the court acquitted two defendants charged with war crimes against Serbs in Croatia. Some countries,notably the United States and Croatia,refused to participate in the debate and some of the invited participants,such as the president of the ICTY,cancelled their participation.
Amal Clooney is a British international human rights lawyer. She has represented several high-profile clients,including former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed,WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko,Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad,Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa,Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova,and Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy. She has also held various appointments with both the United Nations and the Government of the United Kingdom. She is an adjunct law professor at Columbia Law School. In 2016,she and her husband,American actor George Clooney,co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
Gabrielle Louise McIntyre (Australian) is an international legal practitioner,jurist,and served as the Chairperson of the Seychelles' Truth,Reconciliation and National Unity Commission.
Frederik Harhoff is a Danish jurist. He was a member of the faculty of the University of Copenhagen and served as an ad litem judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 9 January 2007 to 28 August 2013. After acquittals of mid-level Serbian suspects in war crimes trials,Harhoff circulated a letter to colleagues stating that the higher bar for convictions in this case was established by ICTY Chief Justice Theodor Meron,and strongly hinted that Meron was acting on behalf of the U.S. and Israel in enacting the policy. The Harhoff letter was highly controversial when it was leaked to the press,and Harhoff was disqualified from a separate war crimes trial for being set on conviction regardless of evidence,later departing the ICTY when his term of office was not renewed there.
