Summary
Association of the American Law Schools Panel on the International Criminal Court - Panel Discussion
A panel on the International Criminal Court, sponsored by the Sections on International Law and Criminal Justice of the Association of American Law Schools, took place at New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 9, 1999. The year 1999 marks the centennial of the first Hague Peace Conference, which encouraged the development of international criminal law. An important development since then is that individual officials, as well as states collectively, can be held accountable for abuses.See the full content of this document
Extract
Panel discussion.
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS PANEL ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
JANUARY 9, 1999 NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Panelists: Professors Christopher L. Blakesley, Malvina Halberstam, Dorean Marguerite Koenig, Leila Sadat Wexler, and Edward M. Wise. Moderated by Professors John E. Noyes and Ellen S. Podgor PROFESSOR JOHN E. NOYES:(*) Welcome to the AALS Panel on the International Criminal Court (ICC, or the Court), jointly sponsored by the Sections on International Law and Criminal Justice. I want to take a few minutes; to place the Court, whose Statute took final shape at a diplomatic conference in Rome in July 1998,(1) in historical context. Professor Ellen Podgor, the Chair of the Criminal Justice Section, will highlight some significant features of the Court's; Statute, and then our panelists, who are experts in international law and U.S. criminal law and procedure, will discuss questions about the Court. I. FROM THE HAGUE TO ROME: THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT PROFESSOR NOYES: This year, 1999, is the centennial of the first Hague Peace Conference, which was convened on the initiative of Nicholas II, Czar of Russia.(2) The Hague Peace Conference is not usually the event one thinks of first when thinking about the development of international criminal law or :international criminal courts.(3) But three features of that 1899 Conference provide a useful point of reference. In particular, it is useful to contrast the nature of the conduct outlawed at the Hague with the conduct that falls within the jurisdiction of the ICC. It is also worth noting what the Hague Conference contributed to the development of formal international dispute settlement bodies, and to consider some of the changes over the last hundred years in the ways international law and institutions are created. First, note the nature of the conduct that the delegates addressed at the Hague in 1899. The Conference adopted rules on land warfare, specifying, for example, how prisoners of war are to be treated and prohibiting certain means of injuring enemies.(4) States were to implement these rules, and states were to be responsible when their own armed forces violated the rules in their conduct toward foreigners. The conceptual contrast between these Hague rules and the conduct that may be prosecuted under the ICC Statute is dramatic. International law has moved away from its strong nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century emphasis on state centrism. One legacy of the Nuremberg Trials after World War II is the notion that individual government officials, and not just their states, could be responsible under international law for certain gross abuses.(5) The ICC will in fact address only individual responsibility, not state responsibility.(6) There are other contrasts between the nature of the conduct regulated by the Hague Rules and the conduct that international law now considers criminal. Not only does international law now accept individual responsibility, but gross abuses committed against individuals are no longer deemed illegal only if, as was true under the Hague rules, such abuses occur during wartime and are directed toward an enemy. Thus, today, codifying treaties and customary international law provide that responsibility may exist when states or government officials injure their own citizens. Furthermore, international law also now condemns as criminal some, but not all, gross abuses occurring during peacetime.(7) The Rome Statute, for example, defines acts of slavery and torture, if part of a widespread or systematic attack, as crimes against humanity within the Court's jurisdiction. Such crimes against humanity may occur in peacetime as well as wartime, and may occur when the victim and the accused are nationals of the same state.(8) Second, the Hague Conference contributed to the development of international courts and arbitral tribunals authorized to render binding decisions in a wide range of disputes. The 1899 Hague Convention on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes(9) provides for a range of dispute settlement options from which states may choose. The Conference also established the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)--an arrangement involving a list of qualified arbitrators, an administrative structure, and rules of procedure--although recourse to arbitration remained optional and was not made obligatory on parties to any general treaty.(10) The PCA is the precursor of the Permanent Court of International Justice and its successor, the International Court of Justice. Since World War II, over a dozen regional and global international courts and tribunals, not including ad hoc arbitral tribunals, have been established, many of them allowing individual access.(11) These international courts and tribunals are authorized to render binding judgments, and some of the courts and tribunals have proved to be remarkably efficacious.(12) With respect to international crimina...See the full content of this document
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