The United Nations War Crimes Commission’s Proposal For An International Criminal Court

The article examines the evolution of proposals for and debates around the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. Taking as its starting point discussions conducted in the context of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the article focuses on the various domestic, regional and international organizations that seriously considered the prospect of establishing a court with jurisdiction to prosecute international crimes in the inter-war and immediate post-World War II periods. Particular attention is paid to the central role played by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in this regard. In addition, the article provides an overview of recurrent themes that would re-emerge during the drafting of the Rome Statute some 50 years after the conclusion of the UNWCC’s activities.     

“最严重的犯罪”和死刑的强制适用

2008年6月25日,美国最高法院宣布,对强奸幼童犯罪处以死刑违反了在《美国宪法》第八修正案中关于禁止使用残酷和非常刑罚手段的规定。虽然美国最高法院至今拒绝承认类似的死刑适用是违反宪法的,     

Genocide Trials and Gacaca Courts

After many decades of impunity, Rwanda has embarked upon a courseof transitional justice committed to prosecuting all who aresuspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide. The first phase,which began in 1997 and is still continuing, targets the mostserious offenders. Some 10,000 have been tried under the system.Confronted with its limitations, Rwanda has devised a secondapproach, known as gacaca, which focuses on a lower and lessheinous level of participation in genocide, and which is inspiredby traditional models of local justice. Acting upon legislationadopted in 2001, a pilot phase convinced Rwandan justice officialsof the viability of the process throughout the country. Theinstitutions have been fine-tuned, and become fully operationalin the course of 2005. Because the pilot phase encouraged denunciation,instead of offering ‘closure’, the process has actuallyrevealed a much broader popular participation in the atrocitiesof 1994. Rwandan authorities now say the gacaca process willprosecute more than 1,000,000 suspects.