Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice PDF Author: Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195359712
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
As dictatorships topple around the world and transitional regimes emerge from the political rubble, the new governments inherit a legacy of widespread repression against the civilian population. This repression ranges from torture, forced disappearances, and imprisonment to the killings of both real and perceived political opponents. Nonetheless, the official status of the perpetrators shields them from sanction, creating a culture of impunity in which the most inhumane acts can be carried out without fear of repercussions. The new governments wrestle with whether or not to investigate prior wrongdoings by state officials. They must determine who, if any, of those responsible for the worst crimes should be brought to justice, even if this means annulling a previous amnesty law or risking a violent backlash by military or security forces. Finally, they have to decide how to compensate the victims of this repression, if at all. Beginning with a general consideration of theories of punishment and redress for victims, Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice explores how international law provides guidance on these issues of investigation, prosecution, and compensation. It reviews some of the more well-known historical examples of societies grappling with impunity, including those arising from the Second World War and from the fall of the Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese dictatorships in the 1970s. Country studies from around the world look at how the problem of impunity has been dealt with in practice in the last two decades. The work then distills these experiences into a general discussion of what has and hasn't worked. It concludes by considering the role of international law and institutions in the future, especially given renewed interest in international mechanisms to punish wrong-doers. As individuals, governments, and international organizations come to grips with histories of repression and impunity in countries around the world, the need to define legal procedures and criteria for dealing with past abuses of human rights takes on a special importance. Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice aims to share their experiences in the hope that lawyers, scholars, and activists in those countries where dealing with the past is only now becoming an imperative may learn from those who have recently confronted similar challenges. This work will be essential reading for lawyers, political and social scientists, historians and journalists, as well as human rights experts concerned with this important issue.

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice PDF Author: Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195359712
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
As dictatorships topple around the world and transitional regimes emerge from the political rubble, the new governments inherit a legacy of widespread repression against the civilian population. This repression ranges from torture, forced disappearances, and imprisonment to the killings of both real and perceived political opponents. Nonetheless, the official status of the perpetrators shields them from sanction, creating a culture of impunity in which the most inhumane acts can be carried out without fear of repercussions. The new governments wrestle with whether or not to investigate prior wrongdoings by state officials. They must determine who, if any, of those responsible for the worst crimes should be brought to justice, even if this means annulling a previous amnesty law or risking a violent backlash by military or security forces. Finally, they have to decide how to compensate the victims of this repression, if at all. Beginning with a general consideration of theories of punishment and redress for victims, Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice explores how international law provides guidance on these issues of investigation, prosecution, and compensation. It reviews some of the more well-known historical examples of societies grappling with impunity, including those arising from the Second World War and from the fall of the Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese dictatorships in the 1970s. Country studies from around the world look at how the problem of impunity has been dealt with in practice in the last two decades. The work then distills these experiences into a general discussion of what has and hasn't worked. It concludes by considering the role of international law and institutions in the future, especially given renewed interest in international mechanisms to punish wrong-doers. As individuals, governments, and international organizations come to grips with histories of repression and impunity in countries around the world, the need to define legal procedures and criteria for dealing with past abuses of human rights takes on a special importance. Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice aims to share their experiences in the hope that lawyers, scholars, and activists in those countries where dealing with the past is only now becoming an imperative may learn from those who have recently confronted similar challenges. This work will be essential reading for lawyers, political and social scientists, historians and journalists, as well as human rights experts concerned with this important issue.

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice PDF Author: Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197719381
Category : Human rights
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume focuses on impunity and human rights violations, a topic that has become highlighted in recent years as governments have moved from repression to democracy. Roht-Arriaza explores the basis in international law to investigate past human rights violations, to persecute perpetrators, and to provide redress for victims.

Amnesty for Crime in International Law and Practice

Amnesty for Crime in International Law and Practice PDF Author: Andreas O'Shea
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047403088
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
This book contains a comprehensive and well-researched study of the relationship between municipal amnesty laws and developing principles of international criminal law. It pursues a path towards defining criteria for reconciling these two delicate fields of transitional justice. It concludes with a concrete proposal for the international community of states.

International Justice and Impunity

International Justice and Impunity PDF Author: Nils Andersson
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 093286385X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This book reflects a primary response by international civil society to US disregard for international law. It is a damning indictment of the Hiroshimas of our time. It provides a cogent elaboration of the international legal values to be defended, for humanity to triumph over the new wave of global barbarism brought about by the efforts of the United States to consolidate and extend the dimensions of its empire. Once the champion of the United Nations, the United States now skirts the Geneva Conventions, uses international humanitarian law as a pretext for intervention, engages in bombardments causing grave civilian losses, seeks to expand its options in relation to torture while continuing to render prisoners to countries known for its practice. Having failed in its effort to block the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the United States still refuses to ratify its Statute--even though the ICC Statute modified the rules of the 1977 Geneva Protocol and The Hague in an effort to satisfy the trajectory pursued by U.S. foreign policy. The United States' pursuit of a unilateral imperial policy based on military force destroys the credibility of the nascent international legal framework. Rather, the US is leading the world by example toward a future without rules or values, where humanity is subject to the whims of the more powerful. Former government officials, scholars, advocates and directors of international organizations operating at the highest level in the areas of international humanitarian law address the relevant international law, the threats thereto by US policy, its ramifications for the world system, and possible avenues of legal recourse.

Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda

Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda PDF Author: Karen Engle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110707987X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
This volume presents and critiques the distorted effects of the international human rights movement's focus on the fight against impunity.

The United Nations Principles to Combat Impunity

The United Nations Principles to Combat Impunity PDF Author: Frank Haldemann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198743602
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Bringing together leading experts in the field, this volume provides comprehensive academic commentary on the UN Principles to Combat Impunity. The book features the text of each of the 38 Principles, along with a full analysis, detailed commentary, and a guide to relevant literature and case law.

International Law and the Fight Against Impunity

International Law and the Fight Against Impunity PDF Author: Federico Andreu Guzman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789290372189
Category : Criminal investigation
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description


Transitional Justice and a State’s Response to Mass Atrocity

Transitional Justice and a State’s Response to Mass Atrocity PDF Author: Jacopo Roberti di Sarsina
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462652767
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This book brings a new focus to the ongoing debate on holding perpetrators of massive humanitarian and human rights violations accountable in countries in transition. It provides a clear-cut and comprehensive legal analysis of the content and nature of a state's obligations to investigate and prosecute as enshrined in the most important humanitarian and human rights treaties; it disentangles the common fallacy that these procedural obligations are naturally rooted and clearly spelled out in the general human rights treaties; and it explains the flaws in an absolutist interpretation. This analysis serves to understand whether such procedural obligations, if narrowly construed, act as impediments to countries emerging from periods of conflict or systematic repression in the face of contingent circumstances and the formidable dilemmas raised by a univocal understanding of justice as retribution. Exploring the latest instances of interpretation and application via an analysis of state practice, the jurisprudence of treaty bodies, international courts and tribunals, soft law instruments, and doctrinal contributions, the book also addresses the complex issue of amnesty, and other transitional justice mechanisms designed to restore peace and facilitate transition traditionally included in national reconciliation programs, and criticizes the contention that amnesty is always prohibited by international law. It also considers these problems from the viewpoint of the International Criminal Court, focusing on the cases of Uganda and Colombia after the 2016 peace agreement. Lastly, the volume offers a detailed analysis of techniques that may neutralize relevant obligations under international law, such as denunciation, derogation, limitation, and the public international law defenses of force majeure and necessity. Drawing attention to the importance of a multidisciplinary and practical approach to these unsettling questions, and endorsing a pluralistic notion of accountability, the book will appeal to legal scholars and transitional justice experts as well as practitioners, human rights advocates, and government officials. Dr Jacopo Roberti di Sarsina is an International Law Expert at the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna School of Law, and a dual-qualified lawyer (Italy and New York). He completed a PhD in public international law, label Doctor Europaeus, at the School of International Studies, University of Trento, holds an LLM from NYU School of Law, and read law at the University of Bologna.

Promoting Accountability under International Law for Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa

Promoting Accountability under International Law for Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa PDF Author: Charles Chernor Jalloh
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004271759
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
Promoting Accountability under International Law for Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa is pre-eminently a study on the work and contribution of the first international judicial mechanism, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), devoted exclusively to challenging impunity for serious international crimes committed in Africa. This volume is dedicated to the eminent international jurist Justice Hassan Bubacar Jallow, the Tribunal’s longest serving Chief Prosecutor and the first prosecutor of the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. The noted scholar and practitioner contributors discuss various aspects of the law, jurisprudence and practice of the Tribunal over its twenty year existence, while also drawing lessons for current and future international courts such as the International Criminal Court. Themes covered include the role of the international prosecutor; the prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes; the relationship between national and international courts; the role of other international institutions in challenging impunity; and the role of African languages in international criminal trials. Given its wide ranging substantive coverage, this book will be invaluable to anyone interested in criminal justice, human rights and humanitarian law whether in Africa or other parts of the world.

The Human Rights Challenge to Immunity in International Law

The Human Rights Challenge to Immunity in International Law PDF Author: Selman Özdan
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303092923X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
This book focuses on the tension between the protection of human rights recognised as jus cogens (peremptory) norms, on the one hand, and the bestowal of immunity on the state and its representatives, on the other, to ascertain how these immunities can be eroded, if not fully abolished, to maintain full protection of jus cogens human rights under international law. The book argues that immunity should not equate to impunity when violations of jus cogens human rights are committed by States, Heads of State, or diplomatic agents. To make the case, the organic structures of the concepts of sovereignty and fundamental human rights are examined. Then, the human rights-based challenge to immunity is presented with respect to State, Head of State and diplomatic immunity, and the transition from a state-centric system to a human-centric system is explored. Jus cogens norms are at the centre of the impunity versus immunity debate.