Violations Of International Humanitarian Law

Crimes against the international community are a collection of offences that are recognised by the international community as being of universal concern. However the prosecution of crimes against the international community can be controversial. Such crimes may be committed in the context of military conflict. They may be highly politically motivated, or they may have been ordered or committed by the state itself. The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 was a significant development in the law of crimes against the international community. The independent international court established by the Rome Statute, acts as a last resort for crimes fitting into the three categories of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Due to Australia’s Dualistic system, both the War crimes Act

The Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against its minority Armenian population from 1915-1917 left an estimated 1.5 million dead and to date, not one individual has been tried for these egregious crimes. The mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in World War I and Jews by the Nazis in World War II shocked the conscience of the international community and led to the creation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), in order to hold the perpetrators of crimes of this magnitude accountable. In its preamble, the UN charter sets the objective to "establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained". The genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire and Nazis made it clear that an international standard must be set in order to protect the rights of individuals. The UN has attempted to establish international law with the creation of the CPPCG and other resolutions, however, these resolutions are simply words on paper unless they are properly enforced. In this essay I will be examining whether the United Nations have been successful in its enforcement international law, specifically the CPPCG.

At a glance, one may assume that individuals do not play a significant role in international law. International law may seem too broad to encompass individuals in any society. This is because that international law has no jurisdiction. It applies regardless of the local jurisdiction sometimes even overriding local legislation. Courts may use international law to pass judgement on tricky cases. However, individuals play a significant role in international law. International law focuses mainly on the individual. It ensures that individuals get justice mostly in situations when the national

The International Criminal Court (ICC), created in 1998 (Thayer and Ibryamova 2010), is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the most extreme cases, including crimes against humanity, aggressive crimes, war crimes, and genocide. The credibility of this institution, however, has been compromised due to the United States revocation of support and membership. Initially it is important to recognize the arguments against the United States becoming a member state of the ICC and what precipitated the U.S. withdrawing its signature from the document that instituted the Court. Once this has been established, addressing and refuting these objections will develop the arguments in favor of ICC membership. Finally, this analysis will lead to

The ICC portrays a significant responsibility in serving as a court of last resort, and was established by the Rome Statute in 2002 in the Hague, The Netherlands (4). The Rome statute pledged the 121 states, such as Australia, to the establishment of a Permanent Criminal Court, under the jurisdiction of 'mass atrocity crimes', such as War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. However, the uncooperative nature between the ICC and member states is what mitigates its overall enforceability and effectiveness of a successful International Court. The level of enforceability and lack of individual rights which the ICC portrays is demonstrated by the Prosecutor v Al Bashir [2009] (5)case. Omar Al Bashir is a Sudanese Politician head of the Congress Political Party. On the 14th July 2008, the ICC alleged that Al Bashir broke the International Responsibility for all three acts which the ICC hold jurisdiction over, committed since 2003 in Darfur. This allegation became supported by not only the ICC, but by other International measures such as Amnesty International, Genocide Intervention Network and NATO. The Court has issued 30 arrest warrants, only winning two convictions; this has allowed Al Bashir to allude

The evolution of international criminal justice is important to consider. Two ad-hoc tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal of Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), have facilitated the adoption of the ICC. The ICC came into existence on July 1, 2002. The court operates on the principle of complementarity which means that the court does not function unless a state in question is unable or unwilling to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute for one of the covered crimes. Whereas the ICTY and the ICTR had primary jurisdiction and could supersede state action, the ICC only has the aforementioned

In 1948 the United Nations established the United Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR). 70 years later many countries continue to abridge these rules and deny the people the rights they deserve. For over a year now Iraq has been denying its residents rights when pertaining to the court of law. It is understandable that the Iraqi Government does not want other countries interfering with how they handle their issues, but innocents, and wrongly convicted individuals, are being punished for things they didn’t do. Iraq’s 10-minute trials are unjust and a violation of the people’s human rights.

Despite sufficient groundwork for the ICC laid out through the Rome Statute and amended to include aggression in Kenya in 2006-2007, the ICC in many nation’s eyes has been a failure. The first elected chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer has been widely criticized for his continuous failures and this disappointment has led to reluctance of the states. When the ICC was established through the Rome Statute it became evident that the role of the chief prosecutor would be essential to the court’s success, and in many ways the successes of the court would mirror the successes of the prosecutor. This analysis has become accurate, only to the negativity of the court. Moreno-Ocampo’s failures are directly linked to the failures

“A right is not what someone gives you, it’s what no one can take from you,” said by Ramsey Clark (NY Times 1977), lawyer and human rights activist. Human rights are important in the relationship between the people, and the government that has power over them. These sets of rights draw a line in the sand for what the people in power can and cannot do to their citizens. Globally, there are millions of people whose rights are violated daily and nothing is done to protect these individuals. While governments have always been obsessed with external threats and conflicts, they have continuously overlooked the basic human rights of their people, which has resulted in the enslavement, discrimination and racism because of a lack of involvement and the bystander effect violations continue with no change in sight.

The UN Security Council establish a Commission of Experts (hereafter the Commission) to examine and analyse information on crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the territory of the former

The Bosnian war in the early 1990s engendered ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. Under such context of international climate, nearly fifty years after the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, the United Nations created the ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTs) to prosecute individuals suspected of committing war crimes regardless of their official positions. As the grounding and binding agreements, the Security Council Resolution 827 established the ICTY in 1993. It defines the main purpose of the tribunal as ‘prosecuting individuals responsible for serious violations of international

As one war-crimes court shuts down, another starts up it was a historic day for international justice, but it did not look like it. The case against Mr Mladic brings to an end the trials of the important figures indicted by the tribunal. Created in 1993 by the UN Security Council, the Yugoslavia tribunal ultimately indicted 161 people and sentenced 83 of them. The tribunal's biggest failure was its inability to convince people in the former Yugoslavia that it was impartial. Mirko Klarin, a journalist who urged the court's creation in an article in 1991, says one success was expanding the definition of war crimes. The suspicion that war-crimes tribunals are an alien imposition also afflicts the new Kosovo court. Helping people learn what happened,

Humanitarian Intervention is perhaps the most controversial principle of international law and although it has been theoretically present for a long period of time but it is in the recent decades we find real development and practical implementation of it. There are a number of questions that have been haunting the international community and holding them back from adopting a liberal approach towards the Principle of Humanitarian Intervention. Whether or not it is morally permissible or even morally obligatory for a state to intervene in internal affairs of a State to stop Grave Human Rights violation? A States claim of Immunity against intervention based on the longstanding Principles of Sovereignty is legitimate to what extent? Whether

The Rome statute of the international criminal court is a treaty that establishes the courts jurisdictions and regulations. Article 21 of the International Criminal Court is the first article to describe which laws and treaties will be applicable to the courts. Since there are many states that are participating in this treaty it becomes very difficult to have very specific laws and regulations for the court since there is a variety of situations that can happen. An important statement is that any international law must be consistent with the Statute before anything, thus giving the power to the ICC statute to be the starting point of any application of laws. The court has to respect the laws within the different states before trying to intervene

In the pursuit of positive peace for the global community, certain mechanisms are necessary in order to better protect human rights and resolve interstate conflicts. Prior to the events of World War II, a cogent set of laws defining those human rights, much less violations therein were never heard at an international scale. The International Criminal Court has the role as both appellate for justice and voice for peace in the international community but has not yet resolve the contradictory ends of both roles. That contradictory end is that many countries proclaim the necessity of the International Criminal Court as an advocate for conflict resolution and peace advocacy while being resist or outright antagonistic towards the court when their own state has committed those same crimes. To the ends of defending basic universal rights, the International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC) serves that capacity when state level systems cannot or will not act accordingly.