Justice and crimes against humanity

[Music] [Music] American airman edenia epidemic might borrow a Sabrina didn't know until you are when you were very much the boss to my villages or my ability I might've boo sit here who might have rabbil alameen not for money idea what a Miranda had borrow a DNA Valhalla Calista holly was sure to be Casey our Guardian ephedra mary and i'm the ahmadiyya vena catatonic owner we are marshmallows latina an autocracy taça brasil biennium animated about forbid a Nana sadhana palliative in comes the fire paddy [Music] la situación de Buenaventura en su Barrios es de Mucha mere the Mucha violencia de mucho amor es muy lindo quatrain ISA pareció que estaba emotional anomaly in Estoril humor I mean to the Pacific you see not anymore parents well now macabre wing-wang Guinea one is bringing a when I move it me Baba sir now way to Aisha even [Music] click tournament in Delhi the elementary relevant only working at Chaka Fattah or cane requires away in our movie awesome [Music] one will continue to team they know how common without commenting about the return is working as an efficient [Music] [Music] jeez I guess I need to come up with a good wakeup and some karate very positive on that mat it accommodates a pathogen and a couple non-human Maya Mach o hadouken Tokunaga a gay aviator Omaha demography of gentleman who was also enemy on the member athena mad addendum Aryan Khanna [Music] but nowadays our enemy and prison jersey make a Murad totally Maria de fair Maria de su see Maria the torture a Maria the malady do you phone the muscle Allah says she relevant you delete a Polish witticism assault everyone I have witnessed the worst horror on the world I lived in brought 15 and the Crematory once for I'd beside me the batteries used to be sucked up some of them were alive I used to hear guys laying on the ground they were screaming because they couldn't get up [Music] [Music] [Applause] well my childhood sorry goes back all the way to 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland they separated the young the hold the crippled ones the children and mostly the ones that could work one of the gentlemen's says to me the out Bisou the out fisherman's how old you are so I told them the spring Fortson that means 15 years old I was only nine and a half I was a quite a big boy when I was nine and a half years old otherwise I would be pushing up the daisies with my other brothers and sisters of my mother my mother and three siblings went our show it's the Harrow that I went through when I saw my mother going and it's rock with three other children the Harrow I cannot describe to you aiming to annihilate the Jewish race Hitler's army wiped out nearly 2/3 of the total European Jewish community during World War two including German nationals one of the difficulties with the laws of war is they would protect civilians living in countries attacked by the Nazi regime but they provided no protection whatsoever to the civilians actually living in Germany and so we had no name for this crime we didn't know what to call it when a state attacks its own citizens and the drafters of the Nuremberg charter in London and 1945 head upon this name of crimes against humanity so that we had some criminal offense that made it a crime not only to kill the civilians in attacked areas of the world but in the country that shared the nationality of the perpetrator and that was revolutionary [Music] crimes against humanity have been have been with us for for for some decades and since before the Nuremberg trials but but they're being defined today as as huge crimes in in which crime such as violations such as murder extermination torture rape are used specifically against a civilian population such a huge crime it's not individual acts of these crimes during the trial of the major war criminal was at Nuremberg a team of special prosecutors including US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson tried 22 Germans accused of crimes against peace war crimes and crimes against humanity the wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated this was the first time that the term crimes against humanity was used in a strictly legal sense the Nuremberg trial represented the idea that no one is above the law and those who commit order or participate in attacks on civilians will be punished Lieutenant Commander Whitney Harris was on justice Jackson's team as special prosecutors at Nuremberg and led the case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner [Music] Kelton brooder oversaw the Gestapo he oversaw the concentration camp system Whitney was asked to go interview Rudolf Hess as part of the culture burner case and Whitney conducted an interview with Hess that made an extraordinary impression on him paths had been the Commandant of Auschwitz and he personally admitted that he had received orders and had carry out orders to kill millions of women men and children Whitney couldn't forget that and his interview of Hess was instrumental and the case against culture burner which the Allies won when you're a lawyer you have to set aside your emotions at that point don't you when you interrogate a witness no matter what he says you're trying to get the truth and this is very important to get this traitor out of Rudolf Hess was perhaps the most significant thing of the whole trial with respect to the Holocaust so you know you just have to put that out now I'm emotional at that time that wasn't I was trying to get the facts I was happy that he told me two and a half million did I put that down there for data and to have him sign his name to throughout history the status quo has been the commission of terrible crimes the nuremberg trial tried to change that after their conclusion many of the prosecutors continue to dedicate their lives to making the nuremberg dream a reality he's included Whitney Harris and Ben Firenze who was the chief prosecutor of one of the subsequent US military trials held in Nuremberg been friends try the unsubscription case caught by some the biggest murder trial in history it was his first case as a young lawyer he succeeded in convicting 22 members of the Einsatzgruppen or nazi death squads of murdering 1 million people between May 1941 and July 1943 we've gotta give them an eternity by building on their own burger and you do that by changing the way people think it will soon happen that everybody in the world will be literate and they will not be blinded by some of the propaganda or the powers that exist today atrocities committed during the Holocaust were prosecuted as crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and only later came to be known as the crime of genocide in 1948 genocide was made the subject of an international treaty known as the Genocide Convention which criminalizes the intentional destruction of national ethnic racial or religious groups however it was too narrow to cover other forms of crimes against humanity such as atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia which largely targeted members of political groups genocide and crimes against humanity are two distinct crimes they both evolved into law from the horrors witnessed during World War two and the progress made in the field of international criminal justice from the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials onwards crimes against humanity as the term suggests are some of the worst international crimes they are widespread and systematic attacks perpetrated against the civilian population they include murder and forced disappearances and slave meant torture rape amongst other heinous crimes and they occur far too often in particular in the context of domestic political turmoil and conflict the prosecution of war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide remains the exception rather than the rule since 1945 more than 300 armed conflicts have resulted in the deaths of more than 90 million people mainly civilians these numbers do not include victims of other atrocity crimes such as extermination enslavement imprisonment torture sexual violence persecution enforced disappearance apartheid deportation and forcible transfer in fact the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that by the end of 2014 nearly 60 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution conflict generalized violence or human rights violations yet of an estimated 1 million perpetrators of atrocities only 1% has ever been brought to justice if we look at the world today we see an unprecedented number of conflicts ongoing simultaneously we see that they have never been since World War two so many internally displaced persons so it is obvious that with those conflicts ongoing there is a lot of accountability needed and today the majority of those victims are not seeing any justice being done so accountability is extremely important if we want to see societies moving forward even today 70 years following the Nuremberg trial some governments have been accused of committing crimes against humanity for example by the end of the Korean War in 1953 North Korea had created its first political prison camps although the government denies holding political prisoners today it is believed that there are more than 100,000 North Koreans interned in inhumane conditions in these undisclosed camps a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded these acts constitute crimes against humanity which unlike war crimes can be committed during periods of relative peace he saw you come Lord don't leave about call call you make a move to get you to Goswami that similar man about coherent you can get to my bones are a meal sale I'm getting Harland Hannon challenge razor Monica categorizes e cayuga moon gonna unit Americas are is a para chopper days or three days of total scale in a minute but sugar pursuit at all you know cyanosis a [Music] and this coke is a luchador today what your budget wrong in your day talk to God your target terrorism allah o allah Janica god cookie cotrim Drita got a target error Mauro Bobo gets his hands on way tip and obstacle oopsie godson the ongoing Commission of atrocities in the world is why we need a new global treaty that requires States to prevent and punish crimes against humanity because unlike genocide and war crimes crimes against humanity were never made the subject of their own global convention if you look at the core crimes that were defined in Nuremberg we have global treaties for war crimes for example we have a global treaty for genocide but we don't have it for crimes against humanity so it's I think it's very important that all states realize that these are the core crimes that need to have to be given the same treatment this either extradite or prosecute aspect of it they are obligation to enact domestic legislation on crimes against humanity without a treaty it's much more difficult to do only when States fully take on their responsibilities would we succeed in our collective endeavor to bring justice and accountability for victims of atrocity crimes including crimes against humanity a Taylor treaty on crimes against humanity which enhances complementarity and advances the goals of the Rome Statute should be positively considered they were very few jurisdictions if any until until recent years that had domestic jurisdiction as a crimes against humanity this was really something new at Nuremberg and there was this gap of almost half a century before the Yugoslavia tribunal was set up by the Security Council but countries nations that adopted domestic legislation to assist the the Yugoslavia tribunal some of them incorporated crimes against humanity in their domestic law at very few in states with relevant domestic legislation we have seen how critically important building national capacity is to prosecuting international crimes we have also seen how national prosecutions can change the status quo the decades-long effort to bring Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice was successful when the British House of Lords held that he could be extradited to Spain to face charges of torture committed during his regime Pinochet was ultimately sent to Chile where he was tried by Chilean courts we've had some very important French cases which underscore how prosecutions can ultimately lay the groundwork for the healing of a society going forward in the 1980's Klaus Barbie was tried by the French for his role in torturing and murdering members of the resistance in Leon Barbie was a German so it was easy for the French to try him in a sense what was much harder is subsequently the French prosecutors took on the case of Paul to v8 who was a Frenchman who had been accused of committing crimes against humanity against other Frenchmen during World War two he was accused of the massacre of Lulu where 7 Jews were gunned down by French forces ultimately he was convicted of crimes against humanity the National prosecutions are so critical because frankly they're most they are the most pragmatic way to bring perpetrators to justice if you can seek out a perpetrator in his or her own national jurisdiction usually where they live you immediately achieve custody personal jurisdiction over that individual and so just from a very pragmatic point of view you want to make sure that you have the capacity within national legal systems to prosecute crimes against humanity because typically that's where you're going to have the best shot at achieving custody and ultimately a trial over a perpetrator an alleged perpetrator of these crimes in addition to atrocities committed by states non-state actors have launched widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations committing terrible crimes including kidnapping rape torture and murder in the Democratic Republic of the Congo UN officials have reported that rape and sexual assault are part of an ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by rebel groups [Music] or not I must see her mama we want to protect it that you wanted me to know then I cannot have to an Aikido South African Congo a nacho a Vita and I come there poppy now can you attend up to yeah but I took una comida geron-a-bunga rock up until the Queen took a free kapa haka Dona Ana Moochie zuman amicus rating being cúcuta una ban nanite kill keeper una ferret on fire that's a Mamata more shaman embark on a morbid or to a chronic wasabi Anya can call a per capita telepathy to knock Ibaka College nd most more than conflicts are occurring in a scenario where one and group is waging war against a state you only have to think about ISIL and how much it is present in the news today several years ago you'll hear by the revolutionary united front in Sierra Leone or the National Patriotic Front in Liberia this is the group that wage a war in libraries of 1989 before them here bar enamel in Mozambique before that you hear about UNITA in Angola you'll think about the Americas and [ __ ] in Colombia I mean a list is endless of non-state actors that are involved in committing atrocities crimes today in Iraq and Syria an armed group known as ISIL or daesh is perpetrating atrocities against civilians and even using social media to broadcast its call for followers to commit executions an ex torture and cruel treatment we don't go for a solid wall on it dr. Ben mr. 59 named mr. th Misurata what on it never forget looking at food but it'd get let never be home honey what I shall mark oh I hope miss Monroe Madonna okay mark Bester a metal card answer it debate it with John Jim Joe are you got better it significant ok Roddy Turner McDonald re all about you movement that night I don't you gonna answer it rough mate right Alec the importance of bringing non-state actors into the realm of investigation and prosecution of crimes against humanity whether it be at the international level or at the national level is that these are some of the major perpetrators of these crimes in contemporary society it would be farcical to proceed down this path and somehow hold state actors accountable but not hold a major perpetrator of these crimes accountable that would demonstrate a huge gap in the legal system and frankly open the doors wide for non-state actors to proceed without accountability so you have to fill that gap beginning in the 1990s international criminal tribunals were established to try perpetrators of war crimes genocide and crimes against humanity in a limited number of situations the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [Music] the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda a special court for Sierra Leone the special panels for the prosecution of serious crimes in his Timor and the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia the work of these tribunals led to a new expectation that the perpetrators of crimes against humanity will be punished however the limited mandates are insufficient to prosecute or deter most offenders we know that within our domestic experience in any country in which we may live the the crime rate will will generally depend on the efficiency or inefficiency of the criminal justice system the police and the courts in countries where there is an efficient effective criminal justice system the crime rates will be lower then those in in countries where there is an inefficient a criminal justice system and I believe it's no different in the international community if leaders knows that they likely to be investigated and prosecuted brought before courts if they commit to crimes against humanity and other international crimes I cannot believe that at least some of them may be deterred from from that course of action prosecution alone can never lead to reconciliation reconciliation has to come with from within a society but it's really a precondition if there is no accountability if those who bear the greatest responsibility have not been indicted prosecuted and judged it's very very difficult for societies to move forward together in 1998 with the adoption of the Rome Statute a permanent International Criminal Court was established to take on many more situations giving hope to victims for the age of impunity was over a huge boost was given by the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court because it provides the institution for the prosecution of the crime of crimes against humanity and it's now fully operational and has more than 120 countries who have signed up to the International Criminal Court while the ICC is still in many ways in its infancy important empirical research has already emerged suggesting that the prospects of investigations and prosecutions in situations where the court has jurisdiction can have a cooling effect on the commission of mass crimes the Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity but the International Criminal Court is a court of last resort well the ICC is based on the principle of complementarity ideally the ICC should never act because it's upon States in the first place to apply the Convention to prosecute and punish those guilty of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute however there is no explicit legal obligation for states parties to adopt domestic implementing legislation with respect to Rome Statute crimes but of course that is encouraged so if this contemplated treaty does so that would be an important advantage you want to have buy-in by national governments and it not be seen strictly as an international crime or an international crime that can only be prosecuted before an international tribunal the best way to achieve this would be before national courts International criminal courts and tribunals hear cases about the responsibilities of individuals but for there to be effective accountability States must be held responsible as well having a crimes against humanity convention would achieve a very important sort of foundational step which whereby governments have to take note they have to perform and if they don't they can be held to account for following the conflict in the former Yugoslavia the government of Bosnia brought a case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague alleging that Serbia was responsible for more than two hundred thousand deaths fifty thousand rapes and 2.2 million forcible displacements all crimes against humanity if proven the court held that only one act of genocide had been proven that in respect of the massacre in 1995 in Schreiber nature in in Bosnia and Herzegovina the court indicated that there were serious war crimes committed in other places in Bosnia and Herzegovina where we're certainly crimes against humanity had been committed the court had no jurisdiction in respect of crimes against humanity because as I said it was limited by the Genocide Convention if there if there was an international convention for crimes against humanity and it fit would almost certainly also have a jurisdictional provision as submitting submitting disputes in respect of crimes against humanity to the International Court of Justice and that would have been more appropriate kumamon asthma comma at the bottom of the piece of 11 year when finally CEO Nakamura's mommy paneer a mutiny aggressor when I definitely came back I see alimony and even when L mu a mu Tong sang trainee Siana remark oh my god see you Jerry Lawrence rakamma welcomes a casino to on momentum Oh party Amanda peace Inaba Kiyomi Bonjour economy frangrance RJ PepsiCo Louisiana romona Keveza Marissa kutarka Sammy mistletoe not a pneumonia five live in Seminole derivative immunity in 2008 a group of committed international experts challenged the status quo they joined the steering committee of the crimes against humanity initiative directed by Professor Laila Sadat at Washington University in st. Louis Missouri over the course of three years they held a series of experts meetings and conferences during which more than 250 individuals were consulted in the elaboration of a proposed International Convention for the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity the Harris Institute has historically had a focus on human rights and global justice issues and in 2007 and 2008 it seemed that the time was right for an initiative like that the Harris Institute had the technical expertise to undertake a project of this magnitude and because of the work that had been ongoing of the Institute and its reputation in this field as well as the reputation of Washington University in st. Louis the Harris Institute was able to draw upon a vast assortment an array of international experts who could work with the Institute in developing the proposed Convention for the prevention and suppression of crimes against humanity [Music] the initiative also explored mechanisms that could be included in a new treaty to help States prevent the commission of crimes against humanity these could include provisions on state responsibility capacity-building measures the creation of a treaty monitoring body education and training programs for military and police and provisions on interstate cooperation what we still don't have is a is a proper treaty that governs the obligations of states between themselves when confronted with perpetrators of crimes against humanity to have to extradite they have to share evidence they have to cooperate in any number of ways we already have models for such conventions because they also exist for torture and for enforced disappearance but we don't yet have a general Convention for crimes against humanity if there's a global convention that would exist in addition to the Rome Statute with perhaps clearer obligations on stage to legislate the ICC treaty doesn't really explicitly oblige states to do that the treaty that is now being proposed has that really very clearly set in the treaty so I think it will be an extra encouragement for member states of the Rome Statute to legislate and then for those states who for one are not reason do not want to join the Rome Statute they can then have it in their legislation and apply it in 2010 international law experts members of civil society and diplomats met at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC they listened as Whitney Harris then 97 years old made this heartfelt plea following the trial crimes against humanity one of the most revolutionary and important elements of the nirvichara itself were never set out in a treaty until the adoption of the International Criminal Court statute in the summer of 1998 practically speaking what that means is that the words uttered after nürnberg never again have but a hollow significance some states have argued that the treaty is superfluous that we don't need it because we have the Genocide Convention and we have the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court the difficulty with that argument of course is that the Genocide Convention only covers genocide it doesn't cover the wider scope and magnitude of crimes against humanity as for the International Criminal Court statute it only provides a vertical mechanism for investigation and prosecution and the ICC takes very few cases it is a to Georgia no contacts in Rwanda torture you know vodka caricatures the truth economically free markets it is key David internet la vraie gears off like Prague in sociology basket portal cake in a public you said prison in a public you say tortured an apipa daily confront professor M Sharif a Sunni who chaired the drafting committee at the Rome Conference establishing the International Criminal Court undertook the drafting of the proposed Convention the wording for the new convention was agreed upon by the steering committee in 2010 uncovered it shortly thereafter it is now available in several languages the convention will establish a horizontal relationship between all of the states as it now stands crimes against humanity means that if the ICC prosecutes and asks estate to cooperate that state must cooperate now that state is not obligated at this point to criminalize and prosecute it has the option to do so but with a new convention it would have the obligation to prosecute or to extradite so it becomes a horizontal relationship that complements the vertical relationship that exists with the ICC initiatives of this character the crimes against humanity convention do not occur out of thin air they occur because someone and some group of people have taken a leadership role in conceiving of them of drafting them negotiating these principles and coming up with texts that survive scrutiny and ultimately achieve governmental consensus this all means that individuals do this people are at the at the core of making this happen I think we need to recognize that at the end of the day it's the human spirit that is reflected in these in these documents in 2013 the United Nations International Law Commission began the process of moving the idea of a new treaty on crimes against humanity from academic drawing board to political reality so it is a very important stage here a very important step the the process that has been really to date up so far conducted by university people by academics by activists and specialists but in a non official setting and now we're moving it into the official realm the international law Commission of the United Nations which is a body subordinate to the United Nations General Assembly it prepares a report it submits it to the General Assembly and then the General Assembly can adopt the treaty a treaty that promotes awareness and accountability for crimes against humanity at the national level and encourages interstate cooperation on addressing these crimes that is a positive development in my view ending impunity for me is not the preserve of any one institution in 2014 the international law commission officially added the drafting of a new treaty on crimes against humanity to its program of work an appointed professor Shaun Murphy a Special Rapporteur to spearhead the effort the project will result in various draft articles that call upon governments to adopt national laws to exercise jurisdiction over persons who commit crimes against humanity and to engage in interstate cooperation on issues such as extradition and mutual legal assistance the Commission will finish its work in the next two or three years and send forward to the UN General Assembly draft articles in the hope that the assembly will then take them up and pursue the matter hopefully as a new treaty when that happens it will be very important for governments to assess the work of the Commission but also important for others as well international organizations nongovernmental organizations and even individuals should make their voices heard amidst international welcomes the development of the Convention on crimes against humanity and has called on the International Law Commission to develop it in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court we're very hopeful that it's time will soon come and that maybe before the year 2020 that's in about four years which is pretty good for the international legal process to have for the first time in history a convention on crimes against humanity even though the first time that term appeared in a statute was in the International Military Tribunal the Nuremberg statute in article six what has happened to me I hope to god that you never see it I've seen the worst horror in the world people being knifed people being shot people been when they drop on the Underground eaten by animals people starving all I know is one thing the world should be a lot better but people in the way it is mr. president s le juge derriere to Silla dare toothless atrocity let's say us to tour to reform the torture should be for the person like this Parisian days on the rear to Silla he responsible su responsible it Bolivia Monsieur is another he said I've remarried in Khandala shown Allah ordered a cream totally declaring pop Sarah's rock himself president a recce TV plays Ron Rossi Lokhande national day he said having a lamp reason my perpetuity she say more deeper fixity Kira's on build a moon or a every two circle of a savvy 12 in anarchism is a remark more mas we if you craw result was a confirming I believe that justice is the ultimate way to correct the imbalance between those who misuse power and influence to commit crimes to advance their interest and those they perceive as powerless who suffer at their hands no one is above the law the protective embrace of the law is available and must not be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency we cannot be satisfied with a situation today where international justice is not universal where it's not global where you have a kind of selective international justice a number of countries for which it is applicable for others it is not I'm sure I gotta find a better world built on the foundation of Nuremberg which was an important stepping stone and should be carried forward and not neglected as it is being neglected today [Music] for the victims of crimes against humanity who are patiently waiting for justice the process takes too long but there are many constituencies that will need to be satisfied before a new treaty like this can be adopted civil society needs to be on board and a significant number of the hundred and ninety three members of the United Nations will have to support the treaty so achieving consensus is going to take time but the fact that it takes time is not an excuse for failure to take action today for the first time in history States and the international community are seriously considering the adoption of a new global Convention on crimes against humanity a convention that could bring the world one step closer to making the dream of never again a reality [Music] [Applause] [Music]

[Music] [Music] American airman edenia epidemic might borrow a Sabrina didn't know until you are when you were very much the boss to my villages or my ability I might've boo sit here who might have rabbil alameen not for money idea what a Miranda had borrow a DNA Valhalla Calista holly was sure to be Casey our Guardian ephedra mary and i'm the ahmadiyya vena catatonic owner we are marshmallows latina an autocracy taça brasil biennium animated about forbid a Nana sadhana palliative in comes the fire paddy [Music] la situación de Buenaventura en su Barrios es de Mucha mere the Mucha violencia de mucho amor es muy lindo quatrain ISA pareció que estaba emotional anomaly in Estoril humor I mean to the Pacific you see not anymore parents well now macabre wing-wang Guinea one is bringing a when I move it me Baba sir now way to Aisha even [Music] click tournament in Delhi the elementary relevant only working at Chaka Fattah or cane requires away in our movie awesome [Music] one will continue to team they know how common without commenting about the return is working as an efficient [Music] [Music] jeez I guess I need to come up with a good wakeup and some karate very positive on that mat it accommodates a pathogen and a couple non-human Maya Mach o hadouken Tokunaga a gay aviator Omaha demography of gentleman who was also enemy on the member athena mad addendum Aryan Khanna [Music] but nowadays our enemy and prison jersey make a Murad totally Maria de fair Maria de su see Maria the torture a Maria the malady do you phone the muscle Allah says she relevant you delete a Polish witticism assault everyone I have witnessed the worst horror on the world I lived in brought 15 and the Crematory once for I'd beside me the batteries used to be sucked up some of them were alive I used to hear guys laying on the ground they were screaming because they couldn't get up [Music] [Music] [Applause] well my childhood sorry goes back all the way to 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland they separated the young the hold the crippled ones the children and mostly the ones that could work one of the gentlemen's says to me the out Bisou the out fisherman's how old you are so I told them the spring Fortson that means 15 years old I was only nine and a half I was a quite a big boy when I was nine and a half years old otherwise I would be pushing up the daisies with my other brothers and sisters of my mother my mother and three siblings went our show it's the Harrow that I went through when I saw my mother going and it's rock with three other children the Harrow I cannot describe to you aiming to annihilate the Jewish race Hitler's army wiped out nearly 2/3 of the total European Jewish community during World War two including German nationals one of the difficulties with the laws of war is they would protect civilians living in countries attacked by the Nazi regime but they provided no protection whatsoever to the civilians actually living in Germany and so we had no name for this crime we didn't know what to call it when a state attacks its own citizens and the drafters of the Nuremberg charter in London and 1945 head upon this name of crimes against humanity so that we had some criminal offense that made it a crime not only to kill the civilians in attacked areas of the world but in the country that shared the nationality of the perpetrator and that was revolutionary [Music] crimes against humanity have been have been with us for for for some decades and since before the Nuremberg trials but but they're being defined today as as huge crimes in in which crime such as violations such as murder extermination torture rape are used specifically against a civilian population such a huge crime it's not individual acts of these crimes during the trial of the major war criminal was at Nuremberg a team of special prosecutors including US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson tried 22 Germans accused of crimes against peace war crimes and crimes against humanity the wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated this was the first time that the term crimes against humanity was used in a strictly legal sense the Nuremberg trial represented the idea that no one is above the law and those who commit order or participate in attacks on civilians will be punished Lieutenant Commander Whitney Harris was on justice Jackson's team as special prosecutors at Nuremberg and led the case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner [Music] Kelton brooder oversaw the Gestapo he oversaw the concentration camp system Whitney was asked to go interview Rudolf Hess as part of the culture burner case and Whitney conducted an interview with Hess that made an extraordinary impression on him paths had been the Commandant of Auschwitz and he personally admitted that he had received orders and had carry out orders to kill millions of women men and children Whitney couldn't forget that and his interview of Hess was instrumental and the case against culture burner which the Allies won when you're a lawyer you have to set aside your emotions at that point don't you when you interrogate a witness no matter what he says you're trying to get the truth and this is very important to get this traitor out of Rudolf Hess was perhaps the most significant thing of the whole trial with respect to the Holocaust so you know you just have to put that out now I'm emotional at that time that wasn't I was trying to get the facts I was happy that he told me two and a half million did I put that down there for data and to have him sign his name to throughout history the status quo has been the commission of terrible crimes the nuremberg trial tried to change that after their conclusion many of the prosecutors continue to dedicate their lives to making the nuremberg dream a reality he's included Whitney Harris and Ben Firenze who was the chief prosecutor of one of the subsequent US military trials held in Nuremberg been friends try the unsubscription case caught by some the biggest murder trial in history it was his first case as a young lawyer he succeeded in convicting 22 members of the Einsatzgruppen or nazi death squads of murdering 1 million people between May 1941 and July 1943 we've gotta give them an eternity by building on their own burger and you do that by changing the way people think it will soon happen that everybody in the world will be literate and they will not be blinded by some of the propaganda or the powers that exist today atrocities committed during the Holocaust were prosecuted as crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and only later came to be known as the crime of genocide in 1948 genocide was made the subject of an international treaty known as the Genocide Convention which criminalizes the intentional destruction of national ethnic racial or religious groups however it was too narrow to cover other forms of crimes against humanity such as atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia which largely targeted members of political groups genocide and crimes against humanity are two distinct crimes they both evolved into law from the horrors witnessed during World War two and the progress made in the field of international criminal justice from the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials onwards crimes against humanity as the term suggests are some of the worst international crimes they are widespread and systematic attacks perpetrated against the civilian population they include murder and forced disappearances and slave meant torture rape amongst other heinous crimes and they occur far too often in particular in the context of domestic political turmoil and conflict the prosecution of war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide remains the exception rather than the rule since 1945 more than 300 armed conflicts have resulted in the deaths of more than 90 million people mainly civilians these numbers do not include victims of other atrocity crimes such as extermination enslavement imprisonment torture sexual violence persecution enforced disappearance apartheid deportation and forcible transfer in fact the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that by the end of 2014 nearly 60 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution conflict generalized violence or human rights violations yet of an estimated 1 million perpetrators of atrocities only 1% has ever been brought to justice if we look at the world today we see an unprecedented number of conflicts ongoing simultaneously we see that they have never been since World War two so many internally displaced persons so it is obvious that with those conflicts ongoing there is a lot of accountability needed and today the majority of those victims are not seeing any justice being done so accountability is extremely important if we want to see societies moving forward even today 70 years following the Nuremberg trial some governments have been accused of committing crimes against humanity for example by the end of the Korean War in 1953 North Korea had created its first political prison camps although the government denies holding political prisoners today it is believed that there are more than 100,000 North Koreans interned in inhumane conditions in these undisclosed camps a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded these acts constitute crimes against humanity which unlike war crimes can be committed during periods of relative peace he saw you come Lord don't leave about call call you make a move to get you to Goswami that similar man about coherent you can get to my bones are a meal sale I'm getting Harland Hannon challenge razor Monica categorizes e cayuga moon gonna unit Americas are is a para chopper days or three days of total scale in a minute but sugar pursuit at all you know cyanosis a [Music] and this coke is a luchador today what your budget wrong in your day talk to God your target terrorism allah o allah Janica god cookie cotrim Drita got a target error Mauro Bobo gets his hands on way tip and obstacle oopsie godson the ongoing Commission of atrocities in the world is why we need a new global treaty that requires States to prevent and punish crimes against humanity because unlike genocide and war crimes crimes against humanity were never made the subject of their own global convention if you look at the core crimes that were defined in Nuremberg we have global treaties for war crimes for example we have a global treaty for genocide but we don't have it for crimes against humanity so it's I think it's very important that all states realize that these are the core crimes that need to have to be given the same treatment this either extradite or prosecute aspect of it they are obligation to enact domestic legislation on crimes against humanity without a treaty it's much more difficult to do only when States fully take on their responsibilities would we succeed in our collective endeavor to bring justice and accountability for victims of atrocity crimes including crimes against humanity a Taylor treaty on crimes against humanity which enhances complementarity and advances the goals of the Rome Statute should be positively considered they were very few jurisdictions if any until until recent years that had domestic jurisdiction as a crimes against humanity this was really something new at Nuremberg and there was this gap of almost half a century before the Yugoslavia tribunal was set up by the Security Council but countries nations that adopted domestic legislation to assist the the Yugoslavia tribunal some of them incorporated crimes against humanity in their domestic law at very few in states with relevant domestic legislation we have seen how critically important building national capacity is to prosecuting international crimes we have also seen how national prosecutions can change the status quo the decades-long effort to bring Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice was successful when the British House of Lords held that he could be extradited to Spain to face charges of torture committed during his regime Pinochet was ultimately sent to Chile where he was tried by Chilean courts we've had some very important French cases which underscore how prosecutions can ultimately lay the groundwork for the healing of a society going forward in the 1980's Klaus Barbie was tried by the French for his role in torturing and murdering members of the resistance in Leon Barbie was a German so it was easy for the French to try him in a sense what was much harder is subsequently the French prosecutors took on the case of Paul to v8 who was a Frenchman who had been accused of committing crimes against humanity against other Frenchmen during World War two he was accused of the massacre of Lulu where 7 Jews were gunned down by French forces ultimately he was convicted of crimes against humanity the National prosecutions are so critical because frankly they're most they are the most pragmatic way to bring perpetrators to justice if you can seek out a perpetrator in his or her own national jurisdiction usually where they live you immediately achieve custody personal jurisdiction over that individual and so just from a very pragmatic point of view you want to make sure that you have the capacity within national legal systems to prosecute crimes against humanity because typically that's where you're going to have the best shot at achieving custody and ultimately a trial over a perpetrator an alleged perpetrator of these crimes in addition to atrocities committed by states non-state actors have launched widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations committing terrible crimes including kidnapping rape torture and murder in the Democratic Republic of the Congo UN officials have reported that rape and sexual assault are part of an ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by rebel groups [Music] or not I must see her mama we want to protect it that you wanted me to know then I cannot have to an Aikido South African Congo a nacho a Vita and I come there poppy now can you attend up to yeah but I took una comida geron-a-bunga rock up until the Queen took a free kapa haka Dona Ana Moochie zuman amicus rating being cúcuta una ban nanite kill keeper una ferret on fire that's a Mamata more shaman embark on a morbid or to a chronic wasabi Anya can call a per capita telepathy to knock Ibaka College nd most more than conflicts are occurring in a scenario where one and group is waging war against a state you only have to think about ISIL and how much it is present in the news today several years ago you'll hear by the revolutionary united front in Sierra Leone or the National Patriotic Front in Liberia this is the group that wage a war in libraries of 1989 before them here bar enamel in Mozambique before that you hear about UNITA in Angola you'll think about the Americas and [ __ ] in Colombia I mean a list is endless of non-state actors that are involved in committing atrocities crimes today in Iraq and Syria an armed group known as ISIL or daesh is perpetrating atrocities against civilians and even using social media to broadcast its call for followers to commit executions an ex torture and cruel treatment we don't go for a solid wall on it dr. Ben mr. 59 named mr. th Misurata what on it never forget looking at food but it'd get let never be home honey what I shall mark oh I hope miss Monroe Madonna okay mark Bester a metal card answer it debate it with John Jim Joe are you got better it significant ok Roddy Turner McDonald re all about you movement that night I don't you gonna answer it rough mate right Alec the importance of bringing non-state actors into the realm of investigation and prosecution of crimes against humanity whether it be at the international level or at the national level is that these are some of the major perpetrators of these crimes in contemporary society it would be farcical to proceed down this path and somehow hold state actors accountable but not hold a major perpetrator of these crimes accountable that would demonstrate a huge gap in the legal system and frankly open the doors wide for non-state actors to proceed without accountability so you have to fill that gap beginning in the 1990s international criminal tribunals were established to try perpetrators of war crimes genocide and crimes against humanity in a limited number of situations the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [Music] the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda a special court for Sierra Leone the special panels for the prosecution of serious crimes in his Timor and the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia the work of these tribunals led to a new expectation that the perpetrators of crimes against humanity will be punished however the limited mandates are insufficient to prosecute or deter most offenders we know that within our domestic experience in any country in which we may live the the crime rate will will generally depend on the efficiency or inefficiency of the criminal justice system the police and the courts in countries where there is an efficient effective criminal justice system the crime rates will be lower then those in in countries where there is an inefficient a criminal justice system and I believe it's no different in the international community if leaders knows that they likely to be investigated and prosecuted brought before courts if they commit to crimes against humanity and other international crimes I cannot believe that at least some of them may be deterred from from that course of action prosecution alone can never lead to reconciliation reconciliation has to come with from within a society but it's really a precondition if there is no accountability if those who bear the greatest responsibility have not been indicted prosecuted and judged it's very very difficult for societies to move forward together in 1998 with the adoption of the Rome Statute a permanent International Criminal Court was established to take on many more situations giving hope to victims for the age of impunity was over a huge boost was given by the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court because it provides the institution for the prosecution of the crime of crimes against humanity and it's now fully operational and has more than 120 countries who have signed up to the International Criminal Court while the ICC is still in many ways in its infancy important empirical research has already emerged suggesting that the prospects of investigations and prosecutions in situations where the court has jurisdiction can have a cooling effect on the commission of mass crimes the Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity but the International Criminal Court is a court of last resort well the ICC is based on the principle of complementarity ideally the ICC should never act because it's upon States in the first place to apply the Convention to prosecute and punish those guilty of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute however there is no explicit legal obligation for states parties to adopt domestic implementing legislation with respect to Rome Statute crimes but of course that is encouraged so if this contemplated treaty does so that would be an important advantage you want to have buy-in by national governments and it not be seen strictly as an international crime or an international crime that can only be prosecuted before an international tribunal the best way to achieve this would be before national courts International criminal courts and tribunals hear cases about the responsibilities of individuals but for there to be effective accountability States must be held responsible as well having a crimes against humanity convention would achieve a very important sort of foundational step which whereby governments have to take note they have to perform and if they don't they can be held to account for following the conflict in the former Yugoslavia the government of Bosnia brought a case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague alleging that Serbia was responsible for more than two hundred thousand deaths fifty thousand rapes and 2.2 million forcible displacements all crimes against humanity if proven the court held that only one act of genocide had been proven that in respect of the massacre in 1995 in Schreiber nature in in Bosnia and Herzegovina the court indicated that there were serious war crimes committed in other places in Bosnia and Herzegovina where we're certainly crimes against humanity had been committed the court had no jurisdiction in respect of crimes against humanity because as I said it was limited by the Genocide Convention if there if there was an international convention for crimes against humanity and it fit would almost certainly also have a jurisdictional provision as submitting submitting disputes in respect of crimes against humanity to the International Court of Justice and that would have been more appropriate kumamon asthma comma at the bottom of the piece of 11 year when finally CEO Nakamura's mommy paneer a mutiny aggressor when I definitely came back I see alimony and even when L mu a mu Tong sang trainee Siana remark oh my god see you Jerry Lawrence rakamma welcomes a casino to on momentum Oh party Amanda peace Inaba Kiyomi Bonjour economy frangrance RJ PepsiCo Louisiana romona Keveza Marissa kutarka Sammy mistletoe not a pneumonia five live in Seminole derivative immunity in 2008 a group of committed international experts challenged the status quo they joined the steering committee of the crimes against humanity initiative directed by Professor Laila Sadat at Washington University in st. Louis Missouri over the course of three years they held a series of experts meetings and conferences during which more than 250 individuals were consulted in the elaboration of a proposed International Convention for the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity the Harris Institute has historically had a focus on human rights and global justice issues and in 2007 and 2008 it seemed that the time was right for an initiative like that the Harris Institute had the technical expertise to undertake a project of this magnitude and because of the work that had been ongoing of the Institute and its reputation in this field as well as the reputation of Washington University in st. Louis the Harris Institute was able to draw upon a vast assortment an array of international experts who could work with the Institute in developing the proposed Convention for the prevention and suppression of crimes against humanity [Music] the initiative also explored mechanisms that could be included in a new treaty to help States prevent the commission of crimes against humanity these could include provisions on state responsibility capacity-building measures the creation of a treaty monitoring body education and training programs for military and police and provisions on interstate cooperation what we still don't have is a is a proper treaty that governs the obligations of states between themselves when confronted with perpetrators of crimes against humanity to have to extradite they have to share evidence they have to cooperate in any number of ways we already have models for such conventions because they also exist for torture and for enforced disappearance but we don't yet have a general Convention for crimes against humanity if there's a global convention that would exist in addition to the Rome Statute with perhaps clearer obligations on stage to legislate the ICC treaty doesn't really explicitly oblige states to do that the treaty that is now being proposed has that really very clearly set in the treaty so I think it will be an extra encouragement for member states of the Rome Statute to legislate and then for those states who for one are not reason do not want to join the Rome Statute they can then have it in their legislation and apply it in 2010 international law experts members of civil society and diplomats met at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC they listened as Whitney Harris then 97 years old made this heartfelt plea following the trial crimes against humanity one of the most revolutionary and important elements of the nirvichara itself were never set out in a treaty until the adoption of the International Criminal Court statute in the summer of 1998 practically speaking what that means is that the words uttered after nürnberg never again have but a hollow significance some states have argued that the treaty is superfluous that we don't need it because we have the Genocide Convention and we have the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court the difficulty with that argument of course is that the Genocide Convention only covers genocide it doesn't cover the wider scope and magnitude of crimes against humanity as for the International Criminal Court statute it only provides a vertical mechanism for investigation and prosecution and the ICC takes very few cases it is a to Georgia no contacts in Rwanda torture you know vodka caricatures the truth economically free markets it is key David internet la vraie gears off like Prague in sociology basket portal cake in a public you said prison in a public you say tortured an apipa daily confront professor M Sharif a Sunni who chaired the drafting committee at the Rome Conference establishing the International Criminal Court undertook the drafting of the proposed Convention the wording for the new convention was agreed upon by the steering committee in 2010 uncovered it shortly thereafter it is now available in several languages the convention will establish a horizontal relationship between all of the states as it now stands crimes against humanity means that if the ICC prosecutes and asks estate to cooperate that state must cooperate now that state is not obligated at this point to criminalize and prosecute it has the option to do so but with a new convention it would have the obligation to prosecute or to extradite so it becomes a horizontal relationship that complements the vertical relationship that exists with the ICC initiatives of this character the crimes against humanity convention do not occur out of thin air they occur because someone and some group of people have taken a leadership role in conceiving of them of drafting them negotiating these principles and coming up with texts that survive scrutiny and ultimately achieve governmental consensus this all means that individuals do this people are at the at the core of making this happen I think we need to recognize that at the end of the day it's the human spirit that is reflected in these in these documents in 2013 the United Nations International Law Commission began the process of moving the idea of a new treaty on crimes against humanity from academic drawing board to political reality so it is a very important stage here a very important step the the process that has been really to date up so far conducted by university people by academics by activists and specialists but in a non official setting and now we're moving it into the official realm the international law Commission of the United Nations which is a body subordinate to the United Nations General Assembly it prepares a report it submits it to the General Assembly and then the General Assembly can adopt the treaty a treaty that promotes awareness and accountability for crimes against humanity at the national level and encourages interstate cooperation on addressing these crimes that is a positive development in my view ending impunity for me is not the preserve of any one institution in 2014 the international law commission officially added the drafting of a new treaty on crimes against humanity to its program of work an appointed professor Shaun Murphy a Special Rapporteur to spearhead the effort the project will result in various draft articles that call upon governments to adopt national laws to exercise jurisdiction over persons who commit crimes against humanity and to engage in interstate cooperation on issues such as extradition and mutual legal assistance the Commission will finish its work in the next two or three years and send forward to the UN General Assembly draft articles in the hope that the assembly will then take them up and pursue the matter hopefully as a new treaty when that happens it will be very important for governments to assess the work of the Commission but also important for others as well international organizations nongovernmental organizations and even individuals should make their voices heard amidst international welcomes the development of the Convention on crimes against humanity and has called on the International Law Commission to develop it in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court we're very hopeful that it's time will soon come and that maybe before the year 2020 that's in about four years which is pretty good for the international legal process to have for the first time in history a convention on crimes against humanity even though the first time that term appeared in a statute was in the International Military Tribunal the Nuremberg statute in article six what has happened to me I hope to god that you never see it I've seen the worst horror in the world people being knifed people being shot people been when they drop on the Underground eaten by animals people starving all I know is one thing the world should be a lot better but people in the way it is mr. president s le juge derriere to Silla dare toothless atrocity let's say us to tour to reform the torture should be for the person like this Parisian days on the rear to Silla he responsible su responsible it Bolivia Monsieur is another he said I've remarried in Khandala shown Allah ordered a cream totally declaring pop Sarah's rock himself president a recce TV plays Ron Rossi Lokhande national day he said having a lamp reason my perpetuity she say more deeper fixity Kira's on build a moon or a every two circle of a savvy 12 in anarchism is a remark more mas we if you craw result was a confirming I believe that justice is the ultimate way to correct the imbalance between those who misuse power and influence to commit crimes to advance their interest and those they perceive as powerless who suffer at their hands no one is above the law the protective embrace of the law is available and must not be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency we cannot be satisfied with a situation today where international justice is not universal where it's not global where you have a kind of selective international justice a number of countries for which it is applicable for others it is not I'm sure I gotta find a better world built on the foundation of Nuremberg which was an important stepping stone and should be carried forward and not neglected as it is being neglected today [Music] for the victims of crimes against humanity who are patiently waiting for justice the process takes too long but there are many constituencies that will need to be satisfied before a new treaty like this can be adopted civil society needs to be on board and a significant number of the hundred and ninety three members of the United Nations will have to support the treaty so achieving consensus is going to take time but the fact that it takes time is not an excuse for failure to take action today for the first time in history States and the international community are seriously considering the adoption of a new global Convention on crimes against humanity a convention that could bring the world one step closer to making the dream of never again a reality [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Transcript for:Justice and crimes against humanity

Transcript for:
Justice and crimes against humanity