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International criminal jurisdiction

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Ever since World War II, the international community has moved increasingly toward the development of a system of international jurisdictions, complementary to that of domestic courts, to try people accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Such system is mainly two-fold: on one hand it relies on the establishment of ad hoc and other internationalized tribunals set up after a conflict; on the other, it counts with the newly created International Criminal Court. 
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Selected Topics

  • International Criminal Court

    The Statute of the ICC was adopted in July 1998, an event welcomed by the ICRC as an important step towards ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide would no longer go unpunished.


  • Ad hoc tribunals

    The Nuremberg trials after World War II began the process of creating ad hoc tribunals to try individuals charged with serious international offences such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.


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Reference documents

Analysis

  • The absorption of grave breaches into war crimes law

    This article compares the concepts, scopes of application and procedural regimes of war crimes and grave breaches. It considers what role remains for the latter in international criminal law, finding that although it is too early to discount grave breaches, they are likely to become confined to history.

    31-03-2009 | International Review of the Red Cross | Marko Divac Öberg

  • Transitional justice and the International Criminal Court – in "the interests of justice"?

    Transitional justice encompasses a number of mechanisms that seek to allow post-conflict societies to deal with past atrocities in circumstances of radical change. However, two of these mechanisms, i.e. truth commissions and criminal processes, might clash if the former are combined with amnesties. This article examines the possibility of employing the Rome Statute’s article 53 so as to allow these two mechanisms to operate in a complementary manner.

    30-09-2007 | International Review of the Red Cross | Drazan Ðukic

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Red Cross Red Crescent Magazine

  • Red Cross Red Crescent Magazine War crimes and punishment

    Punishing war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia is principally the remit of the International Criminal Tribunal, but national war crimes tribunals also exist. The ICRC visits individuals sentenced by these courts and arranges family visits.


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