A United Nations statute to establish the first permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) received overwhelmingly enthusiastic support from U.N. diplomats convening last summer in Rome and may become international law by the year 2001. An ambitious and timely symposium examining how the new court will work will be held at the Cornell Law School this Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6.
Titled "The International Criminal Court: Consensus and Debate on the International Adjudication of Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Aggression," the forum will take place in the MacDonald Moot Court Room in Myron Taylor Hall. It is being hosted by the Cornell International Law Journal, a student publication, which plans to publish the proceedings in its next issue.
The drive to establish an international criminal court began in the wake of World War II, in the shadow of the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. Within the last half of this century, the United Nations has created ad hoc tribunals to respond to charges of human rights abuses in such places as the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The creation of a new, permanent sitting court will eliminate the need for convening a new tribunal each time charges of serious human rights violations are made. The ICC will be located in The Hague, the Netherlands.
The new statute, which was endorsed by a vote of 120 to 7 in Rome last summer, creates a permanent court with the jurisdiction to adjudicate actions on genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression. Among the dissenting nations were the United States, India and Israel. Despite the controversy, the ICC is an international creation that is likely to have an enormous impact on global human rights in the next century.
The symposium will include individuals directly responsible for negotiating the statute, academics, and members of the military and non-governmental organizations. On the schedule:
·Phillippe Kirsch of Canada will present the keynote address March 5 at 6:30 p.m. in the Moot Court Room. He chairs the Committee of the Whole, the primary deliberative body of the United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.
·Cherif Bassiouni of Egypt, author of 41 books on international crimes and chairman of the Rome Legal Drafting Committee, will present a luncheon address March 6 at 12:30 p.m. in the Berger Atrium in Myron Taylor Hall, sponsored by the Berger International Legal Studies Program and the Briggs Society of International Law.
Other symposium participants include: David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues; Narinder Singh, legal adviser to the India Permanent Mission to the U.N.; Maj. William Lietzau, deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental human rights group; and professors from Cornell, Yale and American University law schools.
Three panel discussions will be presented, moderated by Cornell Law School Professors John Barceló, Muna Ndulo and David Wippman:
During the symposium, "Flashpoints," a limited edition portfolio of photographs by Gilles Peress of human rights images from around the world, will be on view adjacent to the Moot Court Room. The evocative photographs, which were taken in Rwanda, Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Iran, are a gift to the Law School from alumna Paula Mueller, B.A. '68, J.D. '73.
"The Legacy of Nürnberg: Sustaining Human Rights," an exhibition of transcripts and papers from the Nuremberg trials in Germany, will be on view in the Law Library's Dawson Rare Book Room during special showings on both days. Both exhibitions are intended to complement the symposium's topic.
For information about the symposium, contact the International Law Journal office at 255-9666, or visit the web site http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/ilj.
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