HOW LONG the WORLD has to wait to establish Criminal Court against Islamic Republic of Iran

First Chautauqua Declaration (29 August 2007)


At a conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Hague Rules of 1907, nine international criminal prosecutors issued a declaration recalling the principles of Nuremberg and emphasizing the importance of the rule of law in combating impunity.

The prosecutors in attendance were: Henry T. King and Whitney R. Harris of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; Luis Moreno Ocampo from the International Criminal Court; David Crane, Sir Desmond DeSilva, and Stephen Rapp, from the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Robert Petit, Extraordinary Chambers for Cambodia; Hassan Jallow, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and David Tolbert, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Other conference participants included Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director, American Society of International Law (ASIL), and David Scheffer, former Ambassador for War Crimes.

Noting that ending the impunity of perpetrators of crimes “of concern to the international community” is an integral part of preventing the reoccurrence of such crimes, the prosecutors specifically called for the arrest and trial of Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Felician Kabuga, Joseph Kony, and Ahmed Harun, and other individuals “sought by international justice.”

They cited Justice Robert H. Jackson at Nuremberg who stated, “We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law.”

ASIL, the Robert H. Jackson Center, Washington University’s Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies, and the Syracuse University College of Law sponsored the conference.
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International Law In Brief (ILIB) - Copyright 2007 - The American Society of International Law (ASIL) Author: Susan A. Notar, Esq.
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