Thesis (M.A.)--New School University. / "December 2001." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-58). Document printed from SEELINE South Eastern European Women's Legal Initiative website. Description based on printout (Sept. 9, 2002).

This thesis analyses the processes through which the United States sought to influence the political and social reconstruction of occupied Japan and Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. An important aspect of this was debate within the US over what kind of peace settlement to be imposed on the defeated states. The debate over whether this settlement should be harsh or more moderate involved different visions of the political and social reconstruction and futures of Japan and Germany. While both arguments shared the same basic aims of democratisation, deradicalisation, and demilitarisation, they different substantially on how to achieve these aims. One aspect of moderate plans was the establishment of international criminal tribunals to try the leadership of the defeated regimes deemed responsible for the atrocities committed. An important part of the prosecution arguments was the idea of the victimisation of the Japanese and German people by their own governments. This was an important part of moderate peace arguments and extended into the political and social reforms implemented during the occupations. This idea of victimisation was not only held by the Japanese and German people, but by the occupiers as well.

This dissertation provides a socio-historic analysis of the ethos of war crimes criminalization articulated in three general historical eras: the First World War era, the Second World War era, and the contemporary era. Both primary (i.e. archival material, legislative documents, and law) and secondary (i.e. journals articles and books) materials informed this analysis. Although these three eras were not entirely discrete (e.g. criminalization during the Second World War era was influenced by the failure of Leipzig trial that followed the First World War, and policy decisions following the Second World War had a great deal of impact upon the criminalization process in the contemporary era) or unified (varying levels of disagreement occurred amongst important lobby groups and policy makers in each era), important policy shifts occurred in each period as the Canadian government attempted to grapple with the issue of war crimes and war criminals. The Canadian criminalization of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide was marked by six prominent features: (1) the sine qua non of the criminalization process in each era was a distinct conception of the nature of war crimes and/or war criminals; (2) the articulation and application of war crimes policies rarely matched; (3) Canadian identity shaped the criminalization process, and the criminalization process helped to shape Canadian identity; (4) although a distinct conception of war criminals was prominent in each era, remnants of past conceptions of war criminals still influenced the criminalization process; (5) an examination of the criminalization of war crimes within the military justice system is essential in order to understand the criminalization process writ large; (6) it is impossible to fully separate the different justice systems in play during the criminalization process.

This dissertation provides a socio-historic analysis of the ethos of war crimes criminalization articulated in three general historical eras: the First World War era, the Second World War era, and the contemporary era. Both primary (i.e. archival material, legislative documents, and law) and secondary (i.e. journals articles and books) materials informed this analysis. Although these three eras were not entirely discrete (e.g. criminalization during the Second World War era was influenced by the failure of Leipzig trial that followed the First World War, and policy decisions following the Second World War had a great deal of impact upon the criminalization process in the contemporary era) or unified (varying levels of disagreement occurred amongst important lobby groups and policy makers in each era), important policy shifts occurred in each period as the Canadian government attempted to grapple with the issue of war crimes and war criminals. The Canadian criminalization of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide was marked by six prominent features: (1) the sine qua non of the criminalization process in each era was a distinct conception of the nature of war crimes and/or war criminals; (2) the articulation and application of war crimes policies rarely matched; (3) Canadian identity shaped the criminalization process, and the criminalization process helped to shape Canadian identity; (4) although a distinct conception of war criminals was prominent in each era, remnants of past conceptions of war criminals still influenced the criminalization process; (5) an examination of the criminalization of war crimes within the military justice system is essential in order to understand the criminalization process writ large; (6) it is impossible to fully separate the different justice systems in play during the criminalization process.

Magister Legum - LLM / The aim of this mini-thesis is to examine the inconsistency in the implementation of the responsibility to protect (RTP) principle during armed conflicts with specific focus on the case of Libya and Darfur. Furthermore the mini-thesis scrutinizes the criteria which are utilized universally and questions whether the principle is determined by factors such as economics, politics and location depending on each crisis. The significance of this minithesis derives from the need to make a contribution to the new interventionism debate and contribute to the growing literature on the doctrine of the RTP especially when it comes to the inconsistencies during its application which seems to be on the rise especially in the African continent. The mini-thesis was guided by the following assumption that there are inconsistencies when it comes to the application of the RTP under humanitarian law. The mini-thesis also embarks on an enquiry into the legal aspects of the RTP doctrine and the legal status of humanitarian intervention. It is worth noting that the RTP doctrine does not concentrate on every human rights violation or abuse of power, even when these are very serious as in the case of Sudan. It certainly does not empower or establish an obligation on the international community to respond by over-riding the offending state’s sovereignty. The initial intention of the RTP was aimed at preventing mass attacks or large scale violations involving genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It is greatly disappointing to note that the international community at large tends to overlook the more severe crises which have more casualties and turn their eyes on less serious humanitarian crises. This raises concern about the extent of the inconsistency in the application of the RTP. The question that begs an answer therefore is why intervene in Libya and not Darfur? In conclusion to this mini-thesis I came to the realization that inconsistencies within the application of the RTP exist because humanitarian intervention under the RTP has a massive political element which affects implementation. The RTP is often used as a justification for states to act in conflicts when there is no domestic support for more direct political intervention. Thus, I believe that intervention can never be completely humanitarian driven until the five RTP precautionary principles are used as a guideline or criteria for interventions.

The current literature tends to looks at regimes in only two categories; democracy and autocracy. Recognizing that this limits the scope of what is measured, and limited the practical applicability of this research, I chose to combine the current research on war crimes with more modern research on how to measure regime type. I integrate James Morrow and Heyran Jo’s comprehensive dataset on war crimes from 1900 to 1991 with Carston Anckar and Cecilia Fredriksson’s dataset on Political Regimes of the World, and run statistical tests to determine the relationship between these more specific categories of regime type and the types of war crimes they commit. I find that the historical relationship between more specific regime types and certain measurements of war crimes provide few clear answers, but does give us a clear argument against a dichotomous measure of regime type. The relationships seen here provide the basis for more in-depth future research into the characteristics of different regimes, and their behavior in times of war.

Since the aftermath of the brutal civil war in Somaliland, no one has systematically considered the human rights atrocities committed by one of the most brutal regimes in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, it is the objective of this study, firstly, to throw light on the international rules which govern those crimes committed in Somaliland during the military regime. Secondly, the study will apply those rules to the case of Somaliland, based on the available evidence. Thirdly, the study will establish a case for the international prosecution of those who bear the greatest responsibilities for the human rights atrocities that occurred in Somaliland. Fourthly, this study will investigate which international mechanism provides the best chance of serving as an adequate prosecutorial mechanism. Finally, the study will analyse the role of individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Prof. Frans Viljoen of the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This thesis examines prosecutorial challenges of the International Criminal Court (ICC/the court) in relation to the dwindling legitimacy prosecuting under Article 5 of the Rome Statute and other relevant international law principles. The study attempts a prognosis of the future shape of ICC prosecutions in light of the challenges and proposes reforms to the operations of the Court and its constitutive instrument to improve the dispensation of justice. The focus of the study is substantive international criminal law, developments in relevant case laws of international courts and tribunals, structure and procedures of the ICC and relevant principles within the context of elements of the Crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the Crime of aggression. The thesis further evaluates the role of the Court as it ensures international cooperation with domestic efforts to promote the ‘Rule of law’, uphold the principles of international humanitarian law, human rights law and combat impunity being the first permanent treaty-based international criminal court with the intent and purpose of ending impunity for perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community and thus contributes to the prevention of such crimes. Additionally, the International Criminal Court advances international criminal justice, particularly with regard to victims by providing not only legal justice but also participation in the process and restorative justice to rebuild the society after mass violence. The thesis is an analysis of the prosecutorial challenges at the International Criminal Court, using its legal framework and jurisprudence to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

This study, which seeks to contribute to the shared-body of knowledge on media and war crimes jurisprudence, gauges the impact of the media’s coverage of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and Charles Taylor trials conducted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on the functionality of civil society organizations (CSOs) in promoting transitional (post-conflict) justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. The media’s impact is gauged by contextualizing the stimulus-response paradigm in the behavioral sciences. Thus, media contents are rationalized as stimuli and the perceptions of CSOs’ representatives on the media’s coverage of the trials are deemed to be their responses. The study adopts contents (framing) and discourse analyses and semi-structured interviews to analyse the publications of the selected media (For Di People, Standard Times and Awoko) in Sierra Leone. The responses to such contents are theoretically explained with the aid of the structured interpretative and post-modernistic response approaches to media contents. And, methodologically, CSOs’ representatives’ responses to the media’s contents are elicited by ethnographic surveys (group discussions) conducted across the country. The findings from the contents and discourse analyses, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic surveys are triangulated to establish how the media’s coverage of the two trials impacted CSOs’ representatives’ perceptions on post-conflict justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. To test the validity and reliability of the findings from the ethnographic surveys, four hundred (400) questionnaires, one hundred (100) for each of the four regions (East, South, North and Western Area) of Sierra Leone, were administered to barristers, civil/public servants, civil society activists, media practitioners, students etc. The findings, which reflected the perceptions of people from large swathe of opinions in Sierra Leone, appeared to have dovetailed with those of the CSOs’ representatives across the country. The study established that the media’s coverage of the CDF trial appeared to have been tainted with ethno-regional prejudices, and seemed to be ‘a continuation of war by other means’. However, the focus groups perceived the media reporting as having a positive effect on the pursuit of post-conflict justice, good governance and democratic accountability in Sierra Leone. The coverage of the Charles Taylor trial appeared to have been devoid of ethno-regional prejudices, but, in the view of the CSOs, seemed to have been coloured by lenses of patriotism and nationalism.

This thesis deals with crimes against humanity and war crimes in the practice of the International Criminal Court, an institution established to prosecute the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole (which include, in addition to the two types mentioned above, genocide and crimes of aggression). Prosecution of these crimes changed significantly from the military tribunals following World War II to the ad hoc tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and finally to the International Criminal Court, which was created as a permanent international institution in 1998 at the Rome Conference and became operational in 2002 after its Statute reached the required number of ratifications. The aim of this thesis is to introduce how crimes against humanity and war crimes have been conceived in the practice of the International Criminal Court with respect to the development of their concept and prosecution by the previous criminal tribunals. The thesis is divided into three main chapters. In the first one, I introduce the topic, specifically the development of the idea to establish a permanent international criminal tribunal as well as its eventual establishment. Furthermore, the first chapter also includes a theoretical introduction to the jurisdiction of the International...