Ebook: International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes

1 In his separate opinion in the Nuclear Weapons case, Judge Mohammed Bed- oui, then the President of the International Court of Justice, called nuclear we- ons “the absolute evil. ” There are a few other things which merit being called - solutely evil. They are the predicates of the International Criminal Court and of various domestic laws patterned on the Rome Statute: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. A conference organized by the Berlin-based Republikanischer Anwältinnen- und Anwälteverein (Republican Lawyers As- ciation) and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights was held in Berlin in June 2005 under the title Globalverfassung versus Realpolitik (Global Constitution versus Realpolitik). It dealt with the tension between these univ- sally accepted norms and the actual practice of governments in an age charact- ized by the ill-defined concept of the “war on terror. ” This book is the outcome of that conference. It is intended for a wide variety of readers: academics, all kinds of jurists, as well as human rights activists, who sometimes know more about the applicable law than the legal experts. It owes its existence to a paradox: On the one hand, new structures for dealing with the most serious international crimes are being put into place.

The demand for accountability for human rights violations is heard throughout the world as never before. This volume explores current developments in the prosecution of human rights crimes on the national and international level. Experts from several countries discuss relevant topics from the academic debate, describe the practice in different countries, and analyze problems which have arisen in this new and exciting field of law. They strike a balance after the first years of the International Criminal Court and a growing universal jurisdiction practice and give the reader a present-day overview of attempts to bring to justice major figures like Augusto Pinochet and Donald Rumsfeld as well as lesser known ones.

Emphasis is put on the emerging principle of universal jurisdiction and the effect of the "war on terror" on legal norms. While the latter threatens to weaken and, in some respect, destroy long standing principles of international law, the developing practice of universal jurisdiction offers new resources for dealing with international crimes. The book examines the tension between these two phenomena and its meaning for international criminal law and the implementation of human rights.

The contributors include Kai Ambos, Jörg Arnold, Christopher Keith Hall, Scott Horton, Florian Jessberger, Lorna McGregor, Michael Ratner, Nigel S. Rodley and Naomi Roht-Arriaza.