Toward universal justice
The end of the Cold War, media coverage of mass atrocities inflicted on civilian populations, and advocacy by NGO s have boosted human rights protection – via conventions and laws – much to the chagrin of certain states. International criminal tribunals were established to judge crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (1993) and in Rwanda (1994). The Rome Statute instituting the International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted in 1998, entered into force in 2002. However, several major states refused to ratify it (China, United States, India, Israel, Russia), some have left or threatened to do so (South Africa, Burundi, Gambia and the Philippines, along with the African Union, operating collectively), others have criticized its cost and slowness, its unsuitability for dealing with complex post-conflict national situations and the disproportionate focus of its initial cases on African conflicts.
In parallel, some countries are establishing hybrid or mixed criminal tribunals (Cambodia, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Timor Leste, Kosovo, Central African Republic, etc.). Negotiated with the UN and/or regional institutions, these jurisdictions refer to national law, are integrated within national legal systems, and are composed of national and international judges and prosecutors.
International Criminal Court (ICC), June 2018
Comment: The ICC is an international tribunal which, since 2002, has judged individuals charged with the most serious crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, etc.). However, barely two-thirds of states accept the ICC’s authority. Only in Latin America and Europe is the Rome Statute widely ratified; it is much less endorsed in Africa and very rarely in the Middle East and Asia. This means that the United States, China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey are outside the ICC. Although completed trials have all concerned individuals from African countries – which has led to repeated criticism –, investigations have also been conducted outside Africa, in Colombia, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Venezuela.
Additionally, various mechanisms have been implemented since the 1990s to rebuild societies emerging from armed conflicts and/or repressive regimes and build lasting peace. This “transitional justice” aims to hold those responsible for atrocities accountable, to identify the facts in order to promote reconciliation between the parties in conflict and the populations affected, and to discourage any resumption of hostilities by fostering a climate conducive to easing social tensions. As part of this process, truth commissions can be set up to investigate systematic abuses, identify the underlying causes of human rights violations and propose changes. In most cases, legal proceedings are then initiated against the protagonists regarded as bearing the most responsibility for the alleged violations. By granting victims reparations – material or symbolic – the state recognizes the damage inflicted and attempts to remedy it. By undertaking institutional reform (particularly in the security and justice sectors), it also commits to preventing any resurgence of serious human rights violations and fighting impunity.
- NGO > Nongovernmental Organization
- Use of this expression became more widespread following its inclusion in Article 71 of the United Nations Charter. NGOs do not have an international legal status and the acronym is used in different contexts to refer to very different kinds of actors. It generally designates associations formed by individuals over the long term in relation to not-for-profit goals, often linked to values and beliefs (ideological, humanist, ecological, religious, etc.) rather than financial interests. Active on a wide range of issues at both the local and global levels, NGOs now number tens of thousands, but vary greatly in the scale of their budgets, staff and development.
- human rights > Human rights
- These are the fundamentally inalienable and universal rights and duties of human beings, which are indefeasible and universal. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these were limited to “natural rights” (basic freedoms considered to be allied to human nature) but human rights have now been expanded to include civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights on the basis of human freedom and dignity. Human rights have been enshrined in the constitutions of most democratic regimes. They are also subject to many protective provisions at both regional and international levels.
- International Criminal Court > International Criminal Court (ICC)
- The Rome Statute, adopted on July 17, 1998, was the treaty establishing the ICC. The Court has the power to judge war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and, since 2010, aggression committed after the Statute entered into force on July 1, 2002. Crimes can be referred by the Security Council, the public prosecutor, or a state party, and the court function according to the principle of complementarity (i.e. it does not replace national legal systems and only intervenes in cases where the latter are unable or unwilling to act). The ICC has been bypassed (particularly by the United States), criticized (for its inefficiency, or because of the high number of African cases), and has received notifications of withdrawal. By spring 2018, only Burundi had left (withdrawal of the Philippines comes into effect in March 2019).
- national > Nation
- Political community based on an awareness of shared characteristics and/or a will to live together. It is common practice to contrast political and cultural concepts of the nation – which in practice are mutually influential and tend to converge. In the political concept, the nation is invented and produced by a state: the territory precedes the nation and defines its contours (this is known as the French concept, based on the republican melting pot and jus soli, right of the soil). In the cultural understanding of nation, a shared common culture produces the nation. The national project consists in bringing this population together on a single territory (the cultural or romantic or German concept of the nation, based on jus sanguinis, right of blood). The latter concept intrinsically produces conflicts and can lead to ethnic cleansing or genocide (Nazi Germany, Greater Serbia, etc.).
- peace > Peace
- The definition of peace is much debated. A restrictive definition sees peace simply as an absence of conflict (negative peace). Peace Studies reinterpreted this definition to include the conditions necessary for peace – positive peace must be an integral aspect of human society. Combined with the concept of structural violence, positive peace was then defined more broadly to include social justice. Among the different theories of peace, the sometimes criticized notion of democratic or liberal peace asserts that the liberal democracies do not go to war with each other and only fight against non-liberal states (this approach qualifies Kant’s postulate in Perpetual Peace, 1795).