Tribune. War crimes commit themselves in Ukraine and they indignate us. Their authors, at the highest level, and their potential accomplices will one day be judged. Yes, but under what conditions and with what legal weapons?
The Attorney General of Ukraine Investigation, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also, to legally characterize the existence of these war crimes. Such surveys are difficult and they will be long. A call was launched to create a court called to judge the crime of aggression. But when will this jurisdiction see the day?
Through the “universal competence”, a number of states may judge the authors or accomplices of the crimes of genocide, against humanity and war committed abroad, since they are filled different terms. If the arsenal seems important, it fishing on two essential plans: no trial “in the absence of the accused”, and existence, especially in France, of “locks” which largely deprive effectiveness the exercise of the rules of ” Universal competence “.
The first international criminal courts created after Nuremberg resorted to the Anglo-Saxon accusatory procedure “Common Law” (former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone) which has its limits: length of the trials, absence of the victims, impossibility of judge the accused who could not be arrested. The ICC now welcomes the victims, who can “assert their rights and concerns” during public hearings.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (TSL) has made a step further by adding in his status the default trial, that is, the possibility of judging the accused in their absence. This makes it possible to judge an accused who could not be arrested and who, in case of conviction, may decide to appear voluntarily and to obtain a new trial. At these two stages, the accused will benefit from a defense, so that the rules of the fair trial are respected. It would be high time to extend this possibility to all jurisdictions, as it allows the victims to appear before the judges during public hearings and thus obtain the recognition of their status.
How to promise justice to the victims of the war in Ukraine, if one is unable to judge Vladimir Putin and his warlords, for lack of being able to stop them? What would investigate ongoing, if they do not lead to a trial? Let us remember the President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bachir, subject of an international arrest warrant for Darfur’s drama, but still not apprehended and not judged.
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