|
Sunday Schedule
Program
Annual
Meeting
Home
|
|
Sunday, January 5, 2003
|
10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Section on International Law
Malvina Halberstam, Yeshiva University, Chair
|
Wilson A
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Mezzanine Level |
The Role of National Courts in Dealing with War Crimes, Genocide, Terrorism and Other Human Rights Violations
(Program to be published in Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law.)
Moderator:
Malvina Halberstam, Yeshiva University
Speakers: - Allan Gerson, Co-Director, Institute for Peacebuilding and Development, and Research Professor of International Law, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
- John Norton Moore, University of Virginia
- Ruth Wedgwood, Yale Law School
For centuries international law dealt only with the rights and responsibilities of states, but not with those of individuals (with the notable exception of piracy). This changed dramatically in the last half century. A number of treaties, ratified by many states, provide rights for individuals and/or make it an offense (or require the state-parties to make it an offense) for individuals to engage in specified conduct. Examples include the Genocide Convention, a number of conventions dealing with specific aspects of terrorism, such as hijacking or hostage taking, the Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Although these treaties have created an impressive body of substantive law, they provide no or very weak mechanisms for their implementation.
This panel will focus on the use of national tribunals to try the alleged perpetrators and/or to compensate the victims. Panelists will compare the Belgian law giving its courts jurisdiction to try persons for genocide and war crimes regardless of whether Belgium has any connection with the act, the perpetrator, or the victim, with the law under which Israel tried Eichman; the U.S. proposal for a military tribunal to try some of those captured in Afghanistan; and civil actions in U.S. courts for monetary compensation by persons whose rights have been violated, such as the action by U.S. military personnel and their families against Iraq for torture during the Gulf War, and the action by relatives of those killed in the September 11th attacks against the Sudan, Saudi Arabian princes, and various charities that allegedly funded those responsible.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion |
|