The ILC’s Draft Statute for an International Criminal Tribunal

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Working Group ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
Basic Parameters ◽  
International Law Commission

At its forty-fifth session in 1993, the International Law Commission took note of the report of a working group containing a Draft Statute for an International Criminal Tribunal, and transmitted that report to the General Assembly for comment. This is the second stage in a process that began in 1992, when the Commission established a Working Group on an International Criminal Court, which laid down the basic parameters for a draft statute. Its general approach was endorsed by the Commission and subsequently by the General Assembly. The Draft Statute adopted by the working group in 1993 gives effect to that approach, although with a number of refinements and much added detail. The third stage of the process is intended to occur in 1994, when the Commission hopes to adopt a final version of the Draft Statute, taking into account comments made on it at the General Assembly and elsewhere. The purpose of this Note is to outline the provisions of the Draft Statute, in the hope of furthering understanding and discussion of its provisions.

The ILC Adopts a Statute for an International Criminal Court

1995 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Crawford
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Working Group ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
Basic Parameters ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Fourth Session

As an offshoot of its work on a Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, the International Law Commission has for the past several years been working on the idea of an international criminal court. At its forty-fourth session in 1992, the Commission established a working group, which laid down basic parameters for a Draft Statute. The general approach of the working group was endorsed by the Commission and by the General Assembly in 1992. At its forty-fifth session in 1993, the Commission received the report of a working group containing a Draft Statute for an International Criminal Tribunal and, without formally adopting the text, referred it to the General Assembly for comment. The 1993 Draft Statute gave effect to the general approach adopted in 1992, but with a number of modifications and refinements and with much further detail. The General Assembly “took note with appreciation” of the Draft Statute and invited the Commission to continue its work “as a matter of priority,” with a view to elaborating a final draft, if possible, at its 1994 session.

Canadian Implementing Legislation for the Rome Statute

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 337-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Schabas
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Preparatory Committee ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

Canada has been very much at the centre of the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since the momentum shifted in late-1994 from the International Law Commission (ILC) to more broadly representative bodies established by the General Assembly. It was Canada that chaired the ‘like-minded’, a group of states active during the several sessions of the Preparatory Committee and during the Diplomatic Conference in Rome from 15 June to 17 July 1998. The ‘like-minded’ were committed to invigorating the ILC's draft statute by enhancing the independence of the Prosecutor and trimming the sails of the Security Council. At Rome, Canadian diplomat Philippe Kirsch was elected chair of the Committee of the Whole, and he directed the intense negotiations throughout the five-week session. Kirsch crafted the final package of compromises that was submitted to the Conference at its close, on the morning of 17 July, and that succeeded in rallying the vast majority of delegations when put to a vote later that day. Since then, Kirsch and his team have presided over the ongoing work of the Preparatory Commission.

Visits to the ICRC

1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (277) ◽  
pp. 345-346
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

• ICRC President Comelio Sommaruga received the members of the International Law Commission (ILC) at ICRC headquarters on 7 June 1990.The Commission is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly. Its 34 members are elected from among the most eminent representatives of the world's different legal systems. The Commission is entrusted with the task of promoting the codification and development of international law. It is currently working on the codification of offences against the peace and security of mankind (which include war crimes) and the setting up of an international criminal court.

Completing the ``International Criminal Order''

1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Community ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Jurisdiction ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
Domestic Jurisdiction ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

AbstractRecent efforts in the United Nations to establish a comprehensive system of international criminal repression by creating a permanent international criminal court are by no means free from doubts regarding the possibility ever to enforce such law. The preamble of the draft statute prepared by the International Law Commission states the basis on which the court is to assert jurisdiction in an ambitious manner: it is the ``International Community'', joining against ``the most serious crimes of international concern''. The project cannot, however, ignore decades of realist criticism against the assumption of the existence of an international community that is ready to accept an international criminal jurisdiction. In the negotiations, this contradiction is dealt with by a technique provided with an ambiguous name: ``complementarity'', i.e. the coordination of the tasks of the international and domestic jurisdiction. The writer discusses the various ideas and proposals presented under the heading of ``complementarity'' in order to examine the tension between communitarian and sovereignty-based strands in the international project to create an effective criminal jurisdiction.

Towards an International Criminal Court

1950 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vespasian V. Pella
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
International Court ◽  
Nulla Poena Sine Lege ◽  
International Law Commission

The United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, adopted a resolution reciting that “in the course of development of the international community, there will be an increasing need of an international judicial organ for the trial of certain crimes under international law,” and therefore inviting the International Law Commission to study the desirability and possibility of establishing such a judicial organ, in particular as “a Criminal Chamber of the International Court of Justice.” Further, in approving the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, the General Assembly endorsed a principle of the greatest import for the codification of international criminal law: that of nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege.

The Sixth Session of the UN Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 548-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Keith Hall
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Preparatory Committee ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
Sixth Session ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
International Law Commission

The Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (Preparatory Committee or committee) held its sixth and final session from March 16 to April 3, 1998, at the United Nations headquarters in New York. At this session it completed its work of preparing a consolidated text of a statute for a permanent international criminal court (ICC) for adoption at a diplomatic conference in Rome held from June 15 to July 17, 1998. The consolidated text is considerably longer than the draft statute submitted by the International Law Commission to the UN General Assembly in July 1994 (ILC draft statute) and contains many different options submitted by states, but it is still largely consistent with the basic structure of the ILC draft statute.

War Crimes in Non-international Armed Conflicts under the Statute of the International Criminal Court

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Djamchid Momtaz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
International Law Commission

International humanitarian law applicable in non-international armed conflicts has long been characterized by the absence of universal competence to suppress serious violations of its provisions. This failure has been due to the reluctance of states – which are naturally prone to consider any limitation of their exclusive competence in this field as a threat to their sovereignty – to criminalize such acts under international law.The first attempt at remedying such a situation was seen in the Draft Statute of an International Criminal Court (ICC), which was prepared by the International Law Commission (ILC) in 1994, and inspired by the draft articles of the Code of Crimes against the Peace and International Security of Mankind, provisionally adopted by the ILC in 1991 at first reading. Under the Draft Statute of the ICC, serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts would be under the jurisdiction of the Court. The ILC had in mind exceptionally serious war crimes, such as those described in the pertinent article of the draft code referred to by the Commission, constituting an extremely grave violation of the principles and laws of international law applicable in armed conflicts. In the commentary on this article, the ILC took care to specify that the expression ‘armed conflict’ covered the non-international armed conflicts that are the focus of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, as well as international armed conflicts.This first step was of very limited scope. In fact, according to the ILC, in order to be criminalized, the laws and customs of war had to find their origin in general customary international law.

Accountability for Crimes against the Rohingya

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Barber
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Fact Finding

Abstract In 2018, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar found that there were reasonable grounds to believe the Myanmar military had perpetrated war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Rohingya people. It recommended that the Security Council refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, but that recommendation is unlikely to be acted upon. This article considers whether, if the Security Council fails to act, the General Assembly may establish an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. It examines first the competency of the General Assembly to consider and make recommendations on matters of international peace and security, as explicitly articulated in the United Nations (UN) Charter and as implied by the purposes and principles of the UN. It then analyses the relevance and applicability of the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace Resolution. It argues that the General Assembly has previously interpreted its powers to include the establishment of bodies it deems necessary for the maintenance of peace and security, and that in the case of Myanmar there is no reason it could not take the further step of establishing an ad hoc international criminal tribunal — albeit one without coercive powers.

The Forty-Fifth Session of the International Law Commission

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-140
Author(s):  
Robert Rosenstock
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Draft Statute ◽  
Working Groups ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Law Commission

The International Law Commission of the United Nations held its forty-fifth session from May 2 to July 23, 1993, under the chairmanship of Ambassador Julio Barboza of Argentina. The Commission elaborated a substantially complete draft statute of an international criminal court in a working group, considered aspects of state responsibility, commenced drafting articles on liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law, began its second reading on non-navigational uses of international watercourses, and made recommendations for its future work. The Commission continued its innovative use of working groups and subgroups to expedite its work and, consequently, had a highly productive session.

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