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Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 A. Amnesty International’s support for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court ......................................................................................................... 1 B. A brief history of proposals for a permanent international criminal court ............................ 2 C. The growing international support for a permanent international criminal court ................... 6 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S BASIC PRINCIPLES CONCERNING EFFECTIVE COMPLEMENTARITY, DEFINITIONS OF CRIMES AND DEFENCES AND TRIGGER MECHANISMS ............................................................................................. 8 I. ENSURING THAT THE COURT IS AN EFFECTIVE COMPLEMENT TO NATIONAL COURTS ................................................................................................. 10 II. ENSURING CORE CRIMES ARE WITHIN THE COURT’S JURISDICTION ........ 12 A. The core crimes which should be in the statute ..................................................................... 12 B. The need for inherent jurisdiction over the core crimes ....................................................... 13 C. Other crimes .............................................................................................................................. 19 III. DEFINING JURISDICTION OVER GENOCIDE ........................................................... 20 IV. DEFINING JURISDICTION OVER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY .................... 25 A. Murder ....................................................................................................................................... 28 B. Extermination ............................................................................................................................ 30 C. Forced disappearance of persons ............................................................................................ 31 D. Torture ...................................................................................................................................... 34 E. Rape, enforced prostitution and other sexual abuse .............................................................. 35 F. Arbitrary deportation and forcible transfer of population ...................................................... 36 G. Arbitrary imprisonment ............................................................................................................ 38 H. Enslavement .............................................................................................................................. 38 I. Persecution on political, racial or religious grounds ................................................................ 39 J. Other inhumane acts .................................................................................................................. 40 K. Crimes in time of peace as well as war .................................................................................... 41 V. DEFINING JURISDICTION OVER SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OF HUMANITARIAN LAW .................................................................................................................................. 44 A. International armed conflict .................................................................................................. 45 1. Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions ............................................................................ 45 2. Grave breaches of Additional Protocol I and denials of fundamental guarantees in that Protocol ................................................................................................... 47 3. Violations of the 1907 Hague Convention IV and Hague Regulations ................................. 50 B. Non-international armed conflict ............................................................................................. 51 1. Violations of common Article 3 ............................................................................................... 53 2. Violations of Additional Protocol II ........................................................................................ 54 VI. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL LAW AND PERMISSIBLE DEFENCES 60 A. General principles of law .......................................................................................................... 60 1. Principle of legality (nullum crimen sine lege) ........................................................................ 60 2. Presumption of innocence ........................................................................................................ 62 3. Prohibition of double jeopardy (non bis in idem) ................................................................... 63 B. Elements of the crimes ............................................................................................................. 64 C. Individual criminal responsibility ............................................................................................. 65 1. Individual criminal responsibility ............................................................................................. 65 2. Age of responsibility .................................................................................................................. 65 3. The irrelevance of official position ........................................................................................... 66 4. Responsibility of superiors ........................................................................................................ 68 D. Incitement, attempt, and joint responsibility ........................................................................ 69 E. Defences and negation of responsibility ................................................................................ 72 1. The non-applicability of statutes of limitation to core crimes ................................................ 73 2. The prohibition of superior orders as a defence ..................................................................... 76 3. The inappropriateness of duress or coercion as a defence .................................................... 78 4. The inappropriateness of necessity as a defence ..................................................................... 81 5. The limits on self-defence and defence of others ................................................................... 82 6. The limits on the defence of mistake of fact or law ................................................................ 84 7. The limits on other defences .................................................................................................... 85 8. Aggravating and mitigating factors ............................................................................................ 87 VII. PENALTIES .......................................................................................................................... 91 A. Excluding the death penalty ..................................................................................................... 91 B. Stating the penalties in the statute ............................................................................................ 92 VIII. BRINGING A CASE BEFORE THE COURT (TRIGGER MECHANISMS) .......... 94 A. The need to ensure that the prosecutor can initiate investigations ....................................... 94 B. The inadequacy of Security Council referrals and state complaints as a substitute for and independent prosecutor ........................................................................................ 95 C. The appropriate role of the Security Council .......................................................................... 98 D. Strengthening the effectiveness of state complaints ............................................................... 98 APPENDIX - INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION’S DRAFT STATUTE FOR AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ................................................................100 THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Making the right choices - Part I “The repression, pursuant to the principles of the Nürnberg judgment, of international crimes against peace and humanity, which the General Assembly of the United Nations confirmed by its resolution of 11 December1946, can only be ensured by the establishment of an international criminal court. This would avoid any future recurrence of the criticism often levelled against the International Military Tribunal for the trial of major war criminals, that it was an ad hoc court which only imperfectly represented the international community.” Memorandum submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Progressive Development of International Law and its Codification by Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, representative of France and former Judge of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 15 May 1947 INTRODUCTION Amnesty International is calling for the establishment of a just, fair and effective permanent international criminal court as part of its work to end impunity for grave human rights abuses such as genocide, other crimes against humanity and serious violations of humanitarian law. Although states have the primary duty to bring those responsible for these grave crimes to justice in their own courts no matter where the crimes occurred or to extradite them to states able and willing to do so, they have largely failed in the half century since the
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