This thesis studies the prospects of holding former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez responsible for false positives, the extrajudicial killings that occurred in Colombia between 2002 and 2008, based on the doctrine of superior responsibility. The legal analysis builds on Article 28(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and customary international law. The thesis finds, first, that there is not sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that Uribe was in effective control of the perpetrators. Nevertheless, there seems to be optimistic prospects of establishing Uribe’s effective control over General Command Mario Montoya, but this requires sufficient evidence to rule out competing explanations. Second, the thesis finds that Uribe’s state of awareness of the false positives went through different phases. It went from wilful blindness at least from 2003 to actual knowledge in 2008. The available evidence indicates that Uribe fulfils the knowledge requirement of superior responsibility. Third, the thesis finds that Uribe did not make a genuine attempt to report false positives to competent authorities for prosecution. Thus, Uribe did not take the necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent and punish perpetrators of false positives. Overall, the thesis concludes that Uribe meets two of the three elements necessary to establish his responsibility for the commission of false positives under Article 28(b) of the Rome Statute and customary international law. The thesis lays out the ground for further investigation on the matter.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:fhs-10241 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Sanchez, Laura |
| Publisher | Försvarshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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