The The Hague Court or International Criminal Court started its activities in July 2002, when more than 60 countries ratified a document called the Rome Statute. This document determined the creation of an international criminal court that would work with the aim of prosecuting, within the principles of international law, people who committed serious crimes.
There are four types of crimes judged by this court, which is currently made up of 18 judges. Over the course of its existence, the International Criminal Court has tried a few dozen cases, and there have been four cases that have ended with major convictions. Brazil ratified the Rome Statute during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
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What is the Hague Court?
The Hague Court is a court penalty international and independent created with the aim of prosecuting serious crimes, such as crimes against humanity. The creation of the international court took place after a conference held in Rome, where representatives from different countries agreed on the need and importance of the existence of such an organ.
The Hague Court is currently in The Hague , city located in the Countries Bases, and its performance takes place within the branch of the law international . The function of the court is to carry out the trial of people who have committed crimes that are within its scope of action. The Hague Court does not carry out the judgment of States because that is the role of another court, the International Court of Justice, linked to the UN.
The Court in The Hague is presided over by the Nigerian judge Chile Eboe-Osuji , which he has held since 2018. Currently, the court has 18 judges, none of whom are Brazilian. The only South American acting judge at the ICC is the Peruvian Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza. Brazilian judge Sylvia Steiner served at the ICC from 2003 to 2012.
What crimes does the Hague Court judge?
As we have seen, the Hague Court only judges people, and currently there are four the types of crimes he judges. The four are considered serious crimes, and the ICC's actions do not violate the sovereignty of any of the countries under its jurisdiction. This is because the ICC will only accept a complaint when there is clear evidence that justice in a particular location has failed.
The four crimes that the Hague Court judges are:
- War crimes:those who violate the Geneva Convention established in 1949;
- Crimes against humanity:when violent attacks against the civilian population occur;
- Crimes of genocide:when a systematic attack is carried out against a certain human group in order to achieve its destruction;
- Crimes of aggression:when an individual uses armed force to attack the sovereignty and political independence of another country.
Complaints accepted by the ICC then only fall within these listed crimes and only citizens of the court's member countries can be prosecuted. This means that only countries that have ratified the creation of the ICC are within the scope of this court. Brazil, for example, ratified the ICC in 2002, during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Another important point of the Hague Court is that only people who are under the jurisdiction of the court are brought to trial. Thus, only defendants who are imprisoned in The Hague are tried, because the court does not hold trials without the presence of the defendant .
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How did the Hague Court come about?
The Hague Tribunal commenced operations on 1 July 2002, after the minimum number of countries ratified the Statute from Rome . This document was prepared by a series of countries that came together during a conference held in the Italian capital in 1998. The Rome Statute came to meet an international demand for an international court to judge crimes against humanity.
Up until that time, some experiments of this kind had already been carried out, such as the international military tribunals that tried the war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II world , and the courts that tried crimes committed in Yugoslavia during its dismantling in the 1990s and in Rwanda , because of the genocide that took place in that African country in 1994.
Thus, the conference held in Rome aimed to negotiate the terms of creating a court and establish how this would happen. The result was the Rome Statute, a document that had the approval of 120 countries . Only seven countries were against the statute's terms:the US, Israel, China, Iraq, Libya, Qatar and Yemen.
Through the statute, it was defined that the court would be based in The Hague and that it would start operating in the following month after the 60-day period, started when there was the ratification of 60 countries . The ratification of the terms of the Rome Statute was an internal matter for each country that would need approval within the legality of each nation's systems of government.
The 60 necessary ratifications took place in April 2008, when 10 countries ratified the statute simultaneously. The Brazilian ratification only happened on September 25, 2002, through Decree nº 4.388 .
The terms of operation of the ICC, as well as the terms of its establishment, are described in the Rome Statute. There are currently 123 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute and are considered member countries of the International Criminal Court. Since it started its activities, only two nations withdrew their signatures of ratification of the ICC:Burundi and the Philippines.
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Judgments
During its years of operation, the Hague Court opened 28 cases , of which four were considered major cases and had major convictions. There was a fifth major conviction that was eventually overturned after the defendant's defense appealed.
The four cases that had major convictions were:
- Thomas Lubanga :Accused of war crimes for recruiting children as soldiers and kidnapping girls to make them sex slaves in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2002 and 2003. Sentenced to 14 years in prison.
- Germain Katanga :accused of crimes against humanity for leading an attack on a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003. Sentenced to 12 years in prison.
- Bosco Ntaganda :Accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, between 2002 and 2000 Ntaganda racked up 18 different charges and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
- Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi :Accused of war crimes for having destroyed sacred shrines in Timbuktu, Mali. Sentenced to nine years in prison.
The conviction that was reversed on appeal was that of Jean-Pierre Bemba , former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Between 2002 and 2003, he led a militia that took shelter in the territory of the Central African Republic, and was accused of crimes committed there by its soldiers. He had been sentenced to 18 years in prison, but inconsistencies in the lower court resulted in his case being overturned and his release.
Image credits
[1] Roman Yanushevsky and Shutterstock
[2] MikeChappazo and Shutterstock