International Criminal Court-the Scope for Intervention.

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International Criminal Court-the Scope for Intervention.

By Kirill Kruchinin

         Allegations of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity have undoubtedly received unprecedented press coverage in recent years – more than at any time since Nuremberg. This is not because the incidences of such barbarities have increased -  ARE YOU SURE? - , but simply because those crimes are brought to us more rapidly these days BY THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA. Since the early 1990’s the international community has witnessed of a variety of criminal tribunals that were meant to promote peace-making and political transition in situations of gross violations of human rights and armed conflict among ethnical or religious groups. This tendency led to the establishment BY THE UN of two ad hoc Tribunals-for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda-and OF the International Criminal Court (ICC). There was also a proliferation of 'mixed' judicial bodies-in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor-composed of both national and international judges and enforcing domestic as well as international criminal law. It is perhaps most cynical to assert that transitional societies, convalescing from conflict or moving from oppression towards democracy, have developed a variety of ways of dealing with past war crimes and human rights abuses. Irrefutably they have united the short-term and long-term goals of ending the conflict and preventing its recurrence, and achieving social stability and reconciliation.

               Almost a century after the idea for such a body had first been mooted, on 17 July 1998, to the acclaim of many; a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) was born at last in Rome. The adoption on that day of the Court's Statute constituted the fourth major step of the journey of international criminal justice which commenced in the European Autumn of 1945, in one of the few buildings then remaining standing in Nuremberg, Germany.

             However such has been the impact of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington that they have thrown into sharp focus critical deficiencies in the purpose, coherence and practical mechanisms developed for sentencing – WHY JUST SENTENCING? SURELY THE JURISDICTION OF THE ICC IS FLAWED! - in the ICC. Not only did such events suggest a greater immediacy for the ICC, but also, more significantly, a realisation that crimes of this magnitude, loaded with so many ideological and political interests and crying out for a 'just' resolution, place the role of the ICC at the forefront of the debate.

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               The pertinent point in relation to this is of some magnitude. They force us to re-examine questions which relate to the penality RIGHT WORD? of international trial process. What are the parameters the retribution and vengeance? Should those consist of a retributive sanction, as any other form of revenge or an exemplary penalty with a strong pedagogical impact? Should we force a criminal to pay for his guilt, and favour his redemption or rather match the convict’s social dangerousness? Consideration of the construction of criminality and the impact of globalised systems of punishment on regional and domestic criminal justice ...

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