excerpts from the book

Lawless World

The whistle-blowing account of how Bush and Blair are taking the law into their own hands

by Philippe Sands

Penguin Books, 2006, paper

 

pxii
With the election of George W. Bush in November 2000, a US Administration took office that was outspoken in its determination to challenge global rules. Soon it turned into a full-scale assault, a war on law...

pxii
... the George W. Bush Administration [tried] to remake the system of global rules, from the abandonment of the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, through the attempt to disapply the Geneva Conventions and other human rights norms at Guantanamo and other places, to the virtual disavowal of the United Nations' prescriptions prohibiting the use of force.

pxvi
Governments, legal advisers and judges pay considerable attention to the rules of international law. The media focuses on the exceptions. That is not to say that law and politics are not intimately connected. Plainly they are, both at the national and international levels. The stories in this book may be understood as conflicts, between political values and legal rules, between competing conceptions as to the hierarchy of moral choices, between different interpretations of what the rules require.

What is striking is how little is known by the public at large of the transformation of international relations that has taken place over the past fifty years. Notions of sovereignty have changed with growing interdependence. To claim that states are as sovereign today as they were fifty years ago is to ignore reality. The extent of interdependence caused by the avalanche of international laws means that states are constrained by international obligations over an increasingly wide range of actions.

p4
... the sixteenth of October I998 ... was the day on which the former President of Chi e, Senator Augusto Pinochet, was arrested while recuperating in a private London clinic from back surgery. His arrest followed a request by judge Baltasar Garzón, an independent Spanish criminal prosecutor, who was seeking Pinochet's extradition to Spain to face criminal charges for violating international laws between ii September 1973, when he seized power from Salvador Allende in a coup d'etat, and March 1990, when he relinquished Chile's presidency. The arrest was to raise a fundamental question of international law: was Pinochet entitled to claim immunity from the jurisdiction of the English courts on the grounds that the alleged crimes were committed whilst he was Chile's head of state? Politically, the question was of vital importance because it signalled a move away from the old international legal order, which was essentially dedicated to the protection of good relations between states. During the legal proceedings which were held before various English courts over the next two years, obscure rules of international law moved into the mainstream of political and public debate. The rules, the judges and the lawyers were scrutinized and discussed in the press, and the debate became a global one. From London to Santiago, from Kingston to Reykjavik, the media covered the case in the minutest detail. The courtrooms were packed with local and international journalists, and they had many questions. What rules of international law permitted Britain to exercise jurisdiction over a Chilean at the request of Spain? Where did the rules of international law come from? How were they enforced? How were they to be interpreted? What if different countries applied them differently? How did international law balance the interest of a sovereign state not to have its former head of state subjected to the indignity of criminal proceedings abroad with the interests of victims and the need to end impunity for the most serious international crimes?

The House of Lords' first judgment, on Z5 November 1998, was broadcast live on the BBC and CNN and transmitted on radio broadcasts around the world, the first time this had ever happened. The following day the judgment led the front pages of virtually every newspaper in the world. It was a landmark day: under international law the former head of state of one country could not claim immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts of another country to avoid facing charges that he had committed the international crime of torture. In the end the decision of the House of Lords was based on a single treaty, the little known (but now mightily important) 1984 Convention against Torture. The case gave rise to copycat litigation, new constraints on the actions of governments, and an unparalleled interest in international law. The 1984 Convention became significant five years later in the controversies over the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Pinochet case was significant for another reason. It coincided with greater attention to other rules of international law which had been put in place over the past fifty years, and which increasingly (but silently) impacted on people's daily lives. Rules of international law which had been adopted since the end of the Second World War have provided the foundations for globalization. By the late 1990S there had been a sustained period of economic liberalization, and this was now marked by large demonstrations in Seattle and elsewhere against globalization and the rules of the new World Trade Organization. These, it was said, would prevent countries from applying their own health, environmental and labour standards. They were a new form of colonialism. During the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War, the international community created a new International Criminal Court (after fifty years of discussion) to end impunity for the most serious international crimes, including genocide and war crimes. It was during this period, in 1999, that President Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became the first serving head of state to be indicted by an international criminal tribunal, in The Hague. But it was also a time when sharp disagreements emerged between states as to how far the rules of international law should go. Negotiations for a global agreement on foreign investments collapsed. The United States withdrew from the negotiations to prevent global warming, as well as from other international treaties and negotiations. In the aftermath of the 9/Il attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attention was focused on the rules of international law to combat terrorism, as well as on the conditions of detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and other camps in Afghanistan and Iraq. Throughout this period there was also sustained public debate on the continued validity and effectiveness of the rules prohibiting the use of armed force and the adequacy of a United Nations organization created in the aftermath of the Second World War. The events in the Balkans in 1992, in Rwanda in 1994, the Great Lakes region in Africa since 1997, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, and, most bitterly, in the spring of 2003 in Iraq, raised serious questions about the adequacy of international rules to protect fundamental human rights and to use force in self-defence or under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council.

International rules are now frequently seen as providing an independent benchmark against which to assess the justification of behaviour - and in particular the behaviour of states - which is politically or morally contentious.

p9
In April 1945 delegates from fifty countries met in San Francisco to negotiate a Charter for the United Nations to replace the defunct League of Nations. In his opening speech President Truman set out America's strong commitment to international law, sweeping aside the opposition from hard-core Republicans in the US Senate. The UN Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 and came into force four months later. Its stated objectives included the development of international law, in particular to protect human rights, prevent war and promote economic and social progress. This was the starting point for the system of modern global rules. Although the US had never joined the League of Nations, it did become a party to the UN Charter.

Within a decade a totally new system of international law and organizations had been created. By the 1950S there existed an embryonic global constitutional order, with rules that remain in place albeit rather shakily in some cases - to this day. The system which emerged largely reflected an effort to export Anglo-American values, and was motivated in part to distinguish the values of the West from those of the Soviet bloc, which had become entrenched behind the Iron Curtain which divided Europe. The development of the global rules was to become a major battleground for the Cold War.

In the field of human rights and humanitarian law an important first step was the agreement to prosecute Nazi war criminals. The Charter for the Nuremberg Military Tribunal was agreed on 8 August 1945 by Britain, America, France and the Soviet Union. This radical and far-reaching document aimed to codify the rules of international law on war crimes and crimes against humanity. The head of the American delegation was Robert Jackson, a justice of the United States Supreme Court, who went on to be the Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg. In his memoirs he described how British officials wanted to dispose of the six or seven leading Nazis without trial, fearing that an open trial would provide a sounding board for Nazi propaganda. But Roosevelt disagreed: according to Jackson he 'was determined that a speedy but fair trial should be accorded to war criminals.. . the President insisted that there be a documentation of their crimes'.'

A few weeks later, a Commission on Human Rights was established at the United Nations. The American delegation was led by Eleanor Roosevelt, the recently widowed First Lady. Over the next few years she led efforts to negotiate what became the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in December 1948 by the UN General Assembly. It is arguably the single most important international instrument ever negotiated. She considered this text to be her finest accomplishment for its promotion of the values reflected in the US Constitution:

We wanted as many nations as possible to accept the fact that men, for one reason or another, were born free and equal in dignity and rights, that they were endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. The way to do that was to find words that everyone would accept.'

The Declaration set out the first ever code of basic human rights which would give effect to the United Nations' determination that 'human rights should be protected by the rule of law'. It was a nonbinding instrument, but it led directly to binding obligations and new instruments in Europe, the Americas and Africa. In 1966 many of its provisions were incorporated into two legally binding instruments of potentially global application, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights.

The day before the Universal Declaration was adopted, on 9 December 1948, the world's first global human rights treaty was agreed: forty-one countries signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in Paris. The treaty characterized genocide as 'a crime under international law', and committed the parties to prevent and punish genocide. The United States did not become a party for another forty years. When it did so, however, in signing the implementing legislation President Ronald Reagan declared that he was fulfilling 'the promise made earlier by Harry Truman to all the peoples of the world', and rejected the argument that the Convention somehow infringed American sovereignty." A year after the Genocide Convention, on 12. August 1949, forty-three countries adopted the four Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims, including treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war (Geneva III) and the protection of civilians (Geneva IV). These instruments criminalized various acts, and made individuals - as well as governments - responsible. These are the international instruments which President George W. Bush sought to circumvent half a century later.

p20
During the Clinton Administration a powerful group of neo-conservatives plotted to remake the international legal order. Their plan was set out in various manifestos, such as the Statement of Principles and other documents associated with the Project for the New American Century. The main targets included the rules which had allowed the detention of Pinochet, the new International Criminal Court, and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. It was said that these threatened American national security. In November woo George W. Bush was elected into office, bringing with him many of the signatories of the Committee for the New American Century. John Bolton became one of President Bush's senior foreign policy advisers and was appointed Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the US State Department. In 1997, as Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, he declared that treaties were simply political 'and not legally binding'." Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department and now President of the prestigious US Council on Foreign Relations, declared the Bush Administration's commitment to 'a la carte multilateralism'; in other words, the US could pick and choose those rules which it wished to follow, and in other areas dispense with multilateral rules and proceed according to its own interests.

Then came 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after the end of the war in Iraq in April 2003, Richard Perle, an architect of the neo-conservative agenda in the United States, went even further, declaring publicly that the war in Iraq provided an opportunity to refashion international law and undermine the United Nations. Such actions began to look like part of a systematic neoconservative effort to refashion the international legal order in the light of new priorities and values.

p21
... the events of 11 September 2001 became a catalyst for the systematic disregard of established international rules on human rights, the treatment of combatant prisoners and the use of military force around the world ...

p23
[Augusto] Pinochet had come to power on an earlier 11 September, in 1977 heading a coup which overturned the democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende. During the fifteen or so years over which Pinochet ruled Chile more than 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared. Fifteen years after he had left office more than 1,500 of those who had disappeared had still not been accounted for. Much of the terror was directed by the Chilean Directorate of National Intelligence, the DINA, headed by one of Pinochet's former pupils, Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepulveda. Contreras explained his mission in an interview he gave in 2002:

[We] were ordered to repress subversions and terrorism that existed in Chile in that epoch.. . We were ordered to do that, and we accomplished that, and Chile was the first country in the world that succeeded in eliminating terrorism from its territory. We eliminated the terrorists from Chile, throwing them out of the country, detaining them in Chile, putting them on trial, with the result that we produced very few dead compared with other countries, which still have terrorism.

The Colonel had previously confirmed that he had served 'as the delegate of the President'. He reported directly to Pinochet 'without any intermediary'. His orders always came from Pinochet himself; in May z005, whilst in prison, he finally provided detailed information on many of the disappeared.'

The 'elimination of terrorists' was not an internal matter, limited to the territory of Chile. in November 1975, Pinochet's Chile had proposed an operation to eliminate enemies all over the world, known as 'Operation Condor', bringing together military leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. A delegation from Brazil joined in I976. In September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States, was murdered. Over the next five years the 'Condor' victims included a former president, a dissident military chief and various democratic political leaders. Amongst the victims in Chile were British and Spanish nationals. Many questions remain unanswered, including the role of the United States in the coup of 11 September 1973 and in 'Operation Condor', and the part played by Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's Secretary of State in the run-up to the coup and in the first months of 'Operation Condor'.

Pinochet left office in March 1990, but was appointed a Senator-for-Life. He continued to have a role in the Chilean government, advising on arms purchases. He visited Britain frequently, travelling on a diplomatic passport. On 22 September 1998 he arrived in London for a private visit, to undergo surgery for a herniated disc. Three weeks late Chile's former head of state and a personal friend of Margaret Thatcher was arrested while recuperating at the London Clinic, just off Harley Street. On the evening of Friday, 16 October, around 9 p.m., Nicholas Evans, an English magistrate, signed a provisional arrest warrant following a request from Spain. The warrant called on 'each and all of the Constables of the Metropolitan Police Force' to arrest Pinochet, on the grounds that between ii September 1973 and 1 December 1983 he 'did murder Spanish citizens in Chile'. Over the following days the arrest made the headlines all over the world. This was the first time that a former head of state had been arrested in Britain. It signalled a new commitment to international human rights law, a further step towards ending impunity.

Pinochet's arrest made international news because it reflected a fundamental shift in the balance of international priorities, and a commitment to the rule of law. Until October 1998 it was generally thought that a head of state - even a former head of state - had the right to enjoy complete immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the courts of any other country for acts which might have been carried out in office. The rationale was a traditional and long-established rule of international law: a head of state is treated as the incarnation of the state itself - 'l'état c'est moi'. This means that any restraint on the individual amounts to an interference with the independence and sovereignty of the state itself o arrest Pinochet was to impugn the honour and sovereignty of life itself. -o

Pinochet had travelled to the United Kingdom in the belief that his status protected him from being investigated there for allegations concerning violations of fundamental human rights while he had been head of state. Shortly before he left Santiago he gave an interesting interview for the New Yorker magazine. This remarkably ill-advised contribution provided titbits of information on everything from his regular teas with Mrs Thatcher to his abiding commitment to the rule of law: 'Human rights! I say there has to be human rights for both sides. '6 But the 'aspirante dictator', as he styled himself, was let down by his advisers. They had not considered the effects of new international human rights laws. In particular, they had not accounted for the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, which required states to prosecute or extradite any alleged torture; or anyone who had been complicit in torture. Curiously, at the tail end of his presidency, in October 1988, Pinochet had personally taken the decision that Chile should ratify this Convention, presumably as a way of signalling his regime's new-found commitment to fundamental rights. The decision would come back to haunt him.

Along with other conventions outlawing genocide, terrorism and discrimination, the 1984 Convention made torture an international crime for which individuals could be responsible. During the afternoon of 116 October 1998, a Spanish magistrate, judge Baltasar Garzón, issued an order for Pinochet's detention for crimes of genocide and terrorism. Through Interpol he circulated an international warrant for Pinochet's arrest.' Garzón's actions were part of a broader effort by independent prosecutors in other countries, including Spain, France, Belgium and Switzerland. Each subsequently made their own extradition requests. Garzón's order was based on allegations that Pinochet had carried out criminal activities in coordination with the Argentine military authorities between 1976 and 1983, and had ordered the elimination of several individuals and the torture, kidnapping and disappearance of others. The warrant alleged that these activities had been carried out through the operations of the DINA, as part of 'Operation Condor'.

p205

George W. Bush, December 11, 2003

"International law? I better call my lawyer. I ... I don't know what you're talking about by international law."

p241
Condoleezza Rice, January 31, 2005

[The State] Department, along with the rest of the Administration, will be a strong voice for international legal norms, for living up to our treaty obligations, to recognizing that America's moral authority in international politics also rests on our ability to defend international laws and international treaties.

*****

p306

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998, extracts)

Preamble

The States Parties to this Statute,

Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time,

Mindful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity,

Recognizing that such grave crimes threaten the peace, security and wellbeing of the world,

Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at the national level and by enhancing international cooperation,

Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes,

Recalling that it is the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes,

Reaffirming the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and in particular that all States shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,

Emphasizing in this connection that nothing in this Statute shall be taken as authorizing any State Party to intervene in an armed conflict or in the internal affairs of any State,

Determined to these ends and for the sake of present and future generations, to establish an independent permanent International Criminal Court in relationship with the United Nations system, with jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole,

Emphasizing that the International Criminal Court established under this Statute shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions,

Resolved to guarantee lasting respect for and the enforcement of international justice,

Have agreed as follows:

 

Article I

The Court

An International Criminal Court ('the Court') is hereby established. It shall be a permanent institution and shall have the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as referred to in this Statute, and shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions. The jurisdiction and functioning of the Court shall be governed by the provisions of this Statute.

 

Article 5

Crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court

I. The jurisdiction of the Court shall be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. The Court has jurisdiction in accordance with this Statute with respect to the following crimes:

(a) The crime of genocide;

(b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes;

(d) The crime of aggression.

z. The Court shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted in accordance with articles 121 and 123 defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime. Such a provision shall be consistent with the relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

Article 6

Genocide

For the purpose of this Statute, 'genocide' means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 

Article 7 Crimes against humanity

I. For the purpose of this Statute, 'crime against humanity' means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination; (c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; (h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons; (j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

2. For the purpose of paragraph I:

(a) 'Attack directed against any civilian population' means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph

against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;

(b) 'Extermination' includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;

(c) 'Enslavement' means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;

(d) 'Deportation or forcible transfer of population' means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;

(e) 'Torture' means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

(f) 'Forced pregnancy' means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;

(g) 'Persecution' means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity;

(h) 'The crime of apartheid' means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph I, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

(i) 'Enforced disappearance of persons' means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.

3. For the purpose of this Statute, it is understood that the term 'gender' refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term 'gender' does not indicate any meaning different from the above.

 

Article 8

 

War crimes

i. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.

2. For the purpose of this Statute, 'war crimes' means:

(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:

(i) Wilful killing; (ii) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments; (iii) Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;

(iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;

(v) Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;

(vi) Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;

(vii) Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement; (viii) Taking of hostages.

(b) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:

(i) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;

(ii) Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;

(iii) Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;

(iv) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;

(v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages,

dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;

(vi) Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;

(vii) Making improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions, resulting in death or serious personal injury;

(viii) The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;

(ix) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;

(x) Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons;

(xi) Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;

(xii) Declaring that no quarter will be given;

(xiii) Destroying or seizing the enemy's property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

(xiv) Declaring abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party;

(xv) Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war;

(xvi) Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault; (xvii) Employing poison or poisoned weapons;

(xviii) Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices;

(xix) Employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions;

(xx) Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123;

(xxi) Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(xxii) Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article , paragraph z (f), enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions;

(xxiii) Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations;

(xxiv) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;

(xxv) Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions;

(xxvi) Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities.

(c) In the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, serious violations of article common to the four Geneva Conventions of 12. August 1949, namely, any of the following acts committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause:

(i) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(ii) Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(iii) Taking of hostages;

(iv) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable.

(d) Paragraph z (c) applies to armed conflicts not of an international character and thus does not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature.

(e) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:

(i) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;

(ii) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;

(iii) Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;

(iv) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;

(v) Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;

(vi) Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article , paragraph z (f), enforced sterilization, and any other form of sexual violence also constituting a serious violation of article common to the four Geneva Conventions;

(vii) Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities; (viii) Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand;

(ix) Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary; (x) Declaring that no quarter will be given;

(xi) Subjecting persons who are in the power of another party to the conflict to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons; (xii) Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict;

(f) Paragraph z (e) applies to armed conflicts not of an international character and thus does not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature. It applies to armed conflicts that take place in the territory of a State when there is protracted armed conflict between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups.

3. Nothing in paragraph z (c) and (e) shall affect the responsibility of a Government to maintain or re-establish law and order in the State or to defend the unity and territorial integrity of the State, by all legitimate means.

 

Article 12 Preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction

I. A State which becomes a Party to this Statute thereby accepts the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to the crimes referred to in article .

2. In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph :

(a) The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred or, if the crime was committed on board a vessel or aircraft, the State of registration of that vessel or aircraft;

(b) The State of which the person accused of the crime is a national.

 

Article 17 Issues of admissibility

i. Having regard to paragraph 10 of the Preamble and article x, the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where:

(a) The case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution;

(b) The case has been investigated by a State which has jurisdiction over it and the State has decided not to prosecute the person concerned, unless the decision resulted from the unwillingness or inability of the State genuinely to prosecute;

(c) The person concerned has already been tried for conduct which is the subject of the complaint, and a trial by the Court is not permitted under article 20, paragraph ;

(d) The case is not of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the Court.

 

Article 98

Cooperation with respect to waiver of immunity and consent to surrender

I. The Court may not proceed with a request for surrender which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international agreements pursuant to which the consent of a sending State is required to surrender a person of that State to the Court, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of the sending State for the giving of consent for the surrender.


The Bush page

Home Page