The International Court of Justice

Trial of Saddam Hussein & Slobodan Milosevic

The Tribunal Court of Rwanda

Significance of the Study• Studying on what is the International Court

of Justice (ICJ) all about helps us in analyzing how the world court doing their responsibilities with regards to the different cases of the world. The span of time of which a case will precede to the court and how cases are being trialled. In connection with the International Court of Justice, studying some of the important trials or issues such as the trials of Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Sopanama/Rwanda we can distinguish how the world court is important with regards to the analyzation of issues, cases or disputes and how it is being solved. Studying this certain issues helps us to be aware on the happenings in the international stage.

Area of Study

• Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Hussein, could face as many as a dozen trials. The first - the only one at present - is in many ways the simplest, and is expected to see Saddam charged with the premeditated murder, torture and forced expulsion and disappearance of the residents of one Shia Muslim town. These all fall under the category of crimes against humanity in international law.

• Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia) from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000, was indicted for crimes against humanity: genocide, deportation, murder and torture to name a few. The prosecution took two years to present its case on the first part of the trial.

The Int’l Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

• The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where one of its objectives include putting an end to impunity and contributing to the process of national reconciliation which would lead to lasting peace in the country.

Facts of the Case• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the

principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French.

Two ways that cases come before ICJ• When states submit contentious case between

them• When one of the organs or agencies of the UN ask

the ICJ for an advisory opinion.

• The date of the institution of proceedings, which is that of the receipt by the Registrar of the special agreement or application, marks the opening of proceedings before the Court. Contentious proceedings include a written phase and oral phase.

Trial of Saddam Hussein• Saddam Hussein was committed “crimes 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 in willful killing, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental norms of international law, torture, enforced disappearance of persons, and other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to the body or other physical and mental health. Saddam will not have killed the more than 300,000 whose deaths he could plausibly be charged with by his own hand, so the prosecutors will attempt to establish that he ordered the killing or was responsible for it. Evidence for a chain of command is hard to come by but, in similar tribunals, cases have been built on witness statements and paper trails.

• Prosecutors also use the principle of command responsibility - that a leader knew, or should have known, about murders taking place by forces under his command but took no action either to prevent them or punish those involved. In parallel, forensic evidence is required to prove that the massacres took place. With all the upsets that have taken place during the trial, few Iraqis now believe the process can be fair. Iraq's government has reintroduced the death penalty, which was suspended under the US-led occupation. Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, is a known opponent of the death penalty, however, and in the event the court decides to execute Saddam, may delegate the signing of his death warrant to someone else.

Trial of Slobodan Milosevic• He was the President of Serbia  from 1989 to 1997 and President

of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000.• Slobodan Milosevic was also charged to commit “crimes

against humanity”.  He and his men deported 740,000 Kosovo Albanians and for the murder of 340 others. The indictment is broken down into four counts: Count 1: Deportation (a crime against humanity), Count 2: Murder (a crime against humanity), Count 3: Murder (a violation of the customs of war), and Count 4: Persecution (a crime against humanity). The charges are based on two theories of liability. The first is command responsibility: the responsibility of a superior for actions committed by his subordinates. As the civilian commander of the Yugoslav military and police forces, Milosevic holds an affirmative legal obligation to prevent his forces from committing, encouraging, or enabling others to commit atrocities in Kosovo. The second is personal responsibility for committing, planning, instigating (persuading), ordering or aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was then sentenced to jail.

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

• This is the first international court of law established to prosecute high-ranking individuals for massive human rights violations in Africa.

• In April 1994. mass killings began in Rwanda and within a few months. as many as one million people were killed in a genocide and other crimes against humanity which shocked the world and shamed the international community. Thousands more were tortured, raped and beaten. The Tribunal was established in order to judge people with violations of international law in Rwanda (and those people responsible for the Rwandan Genocide.)

Major Cases before the ICTR• On 9 January 1997, the ICTR held its first trial, one of the most

momentous cases in international law: The Prosecutor v. Jean‑Paul Akayesu. During the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Jean-Paul Akayesu served as the mayor of Taba, a city in which thousands of Tutsis were systematically raped, tortured and murdered. At the start of his trial, Akayesu faced 12 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of common article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in the form of murder, torture and cruel treatment. In June 1997, the Prosecutor added “three counts of crimes against humanity and violations of common article 3/Additional Protocol II for rape, inhumane acts and indecent assault” (Report of the ICTR (S/1997/868)). These additional counts marked the first time in the history of international law that rape was considered a component of genocide.

• Akayesu is currently serving life imprisonment in Mali.

(Major Cases before the ICTR)

• ICTR also set two major precedents in the trial against Jean Kambanda (The Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda). Kambanda served as Prime Minister of the Interim Government of Rwanda throughout the entire 100 days of genocide. Kambanda was brought before the ICTR in October 1997 and pleaded guilty to six counts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, complicity in genocide, and crimes against humanity. Kambanda’s guilty plea and subsequent conviction marked not only the first time in international law that a Head of Government was convicted of genocide, but also that an accused person acknowledged his guilt for genocide before an international criminal tribunal.

• Like Akayesu, Kambanda is currently serving life imprisonment in Mali.

Analysis of the Study

Saddam Hussein’s Trial• Why does the trial attract so much attention one may wonder and

why do so many people care about ensuring fair proceedings for an ex-dictator on trial for major human rights violations, a dictator that himself made extensive use of a special Revolutionary Court guaranteeing fast executions but by no means due process of law. First there is the hope that this trial might serve as a model for Iraq and might help to re-establish trust in the judicial system and its protection against the deprivation of rights which has been strongly eroded by the past 23 years of Saddam’s reign and to thereby allow the country a “new start” based on firm legal principles. In order to help Iraq through the very delicate transition phase, shifting away from a violent suppressive dictatorship towards a fragile new democracy, the trial will need to open avenues for reconciliation, provide justice for those whose rights were violated and publicly acknowledge the atrocities that have happened in the past decades. Further more by holding Saddam accountable, the current criminal proceedings add yet another name to the list of recent precedents in which heads of state had to face charges for violating international law. The trial might thereby serve as another mosaic stone in establishing the rule of law and deter others from stepping over the lines drawn by international agreements and custom in the area of international criminal law.

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Slobodan Milosevic’s Trial• As the most important moment for international

justice, Milosevic's trial is a possible watershed. Charged with committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Croatia, he is the first former head of state to land in the dock of an international war crimes tribunal. The trial's success or failure will therefore shape all future efforts at punishing the world's bloodiest war criminals -- including those at the International Criminal Court (ICC) that started up in March, and any postwar tribunals in Iraq. International justice must not only be done, but also be made to look useful and appealing so that future politicians will decide, to choose "justice, as a policy."

International Tribunal Court of Rwanda

• The Supreme Court of Rwanda understands the critical need to manage information properly, especially as documents are the basis of evidence. Without planning for records management controls, the Court is at risk of compromising the evidentiary value of records that are needed to attest to court transactions and processes. This would have a serious impact on the timely administration of justice for litigants.

CONCLUSION- Saddam Hussein• Saddam’s trial was intended to validate the war in Iraq, and provide

support for the arguments of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that the only effective way to respond to the law-preserving violence of Saddam’s regime was with lawmaking violence. In the trial, the law-preserving violence of Saddam’s regime encountered both the law-preserving and lawmaking violence of the new regime. Yet the trial also demonstrates that violence is not the only response to violence: Saddam and his co-defendants resorted to disruptive play in response to the legal performance of state violence. The international criminal court was set up to hear such cases as Saddam is likely to appear in, but its jurisdiction extends from its foundation in 2002 and it cannot be used to hear charges relating to events before that date. There was also a political motive to trying Saddam in Iraq, as the new state attempts to demonstrate to its citizens that it has a functioning judiciary. Putting the court in Iraq was thought to be a way to keep the events close to the people who had been the principal victims of the Ba'athist regime. But the trial has descended into chaos, with Saddam entering into slanging matches with the judge, the assassination of two defense lawyer and a third fleeing the country in fear. The Iraqi higher criminal court, which was formerly known as the Iraqi special tribunal (the name some still call it). It was set up under the US-UK occupation by the Iraqi governing council with a remit to prosecute the crimes of the 1968-2003 Ba'athist regimes, both in Iraq and by Iraqis in neighboring countries.

MilosevicIt has been called the most important war crimes

trial since Nazi leaders were prosecuted in Nuremberg, Germany after World War II. Slobodan Milosevic -- dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans" by his enemies but considered a hero for those fighting for a Greater Serbia -- faces charges of genocide and "crimes against humanity" for his part in three separate but closely related wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. What he did caused severe trauma to the society during that time. His life was also significant because the people can see his climb to power as the leader of a collapsing communist country, from being a person having a career in banking.

Tribunal Court of Rwanda Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they may be

solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. This means that We, the people are able to solve the majority of our problems, but we lack the will to do so, we do not lack the capability, we are simply unwilling to solve our problems. By not standing up and not taking the load upon us, we create more problems. The highest manifestation of life is this: ‘that a being governs its own actions’. The question is whether we are willing to transcend the division and hatred, and become people who are determined to have a honest dialogue about the root causes of the perpetual problems we face in order to find durable solutions based on a genuine and truthful national reconciliation.

Recommendation

• The duties and responsibilities of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must continue in serving the global arena in assessing in settling dispute without bias. They must serve and find justice whole-heartedly. In engaging any disputes, we all know that there is a winner and a looser; we hope that they will find the better solution for each problem. After all, ICJ was made to intervene such issues to achieve a conclusion to a certain case.

Thank you!