Accountability For Human Rights Atrocities In International Law

The fall of dictatorial regimes and the eruption of civil conflicts around the world have resulted in individuals being held accountable for human rights atrocities. This text details the promise and limitations of international law as a means of enforcing human rights and humanitarian law.

What rules of international law make the individual, even a Head of State, responsible for perpetrating serious human rights violations, such as war crimes, torture or genocide? This question is becoming more critical in our increasingly interdependent world, and the recent invasion of Kuwait and the brutalization of its people by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has heated up the debate even further. The author argues that a new rule of international law stipulating individual responsibility for all serious human rights violations is currently emerging. To show how this is coming about, he explores relevant norms in classic laws of war, international humanitarian law and modern international human rights law and surveys patterns in their implementation. He then takes account of codification efforts of the International Law Commission, the changing position of the individual in international law, and other important developments in the context of general international law as an evolving system.

This book explores the promise and limitations of international criminal law as a means of enforcing international human rights and humanitarian law. It analyses the principal crimes, such as genocide and crimes against humanity, and appraises the mechanisms developed to bring individuals to justice.

This study examines the principal crimes under the law of nations, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and provides a discussion of accountability as it has developed after Nuremberg.

2 The United Nations

This 128-page report draws upon Human Rights Watch's work over the past 20 years in nearly 20 countries. The report documents how ignoring atrocities reinforces a culture of impunity that encourages future abuses. Rather than impede negotiations or a transition to peace, remaining firm on justice can yield short- and long-term benefits. Anticipated negative consequences of pressing for accountability often do not come to pass. Justice is also important as a matter of principle. Fair trials may assist in restoring dignity to victims by acknowledging their suffering--Publisher description.

With the proliferation of international organizations and their ever increasing role in a wide range of policy fields, situations multiply in which human rights are threatened or violated through the actions, operations, or policies of such organizations. This book is the first to explore these problems in a comprehensive manner and to examine the accountability mechanisms that are available. In the first section, the contributions study general concepts, such as the accountability of international organizations as an evolving legal concept, international organizations as independent actors, the logic of sliding scales in the law of international responsibility, and the relations between the international organizations and their Member States in regard to their respective obligations and responsibilities. Subsequent parts of the book focus on the accountability for human rights violations attributable to international organizations in four areas: peace and humanitarian operations, international civil administration, economic governance, and the staff of international organizations.

Establishes a framework for analyzing and assessing the accountability mechanisms of international organizations, and applies it to three case studies.