Skip to main content

Call for a CAR Tribunal


This past week UN investigators called for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal to investigate crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR).  The establishment of tribunals to investigate serious crimes in a particular theater of war is not a new concept, and legal and historical researchers investigating the history of major war crimes tribunals may be interested in the following resources:
The first such international tribunal was established following the end of World War II.  The International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals, more popularly known as the Nuremberg Trials, was established in 1945 to prosecute the captured leadership of the Nazi party.  Researchers looking for the records of this tribunal can obtain the official records from the Library of Congress, various trial documents from the Yale Law School’s Avalon Project, and trial transcripts from the Hathi Trust.

In 1993, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia was established to prosecute criminals from the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.  Interested researchers can consult the tribunal’s official website for items such as the official court records, indictments and ongoing proceedings.  The tribunal expects to finish its last appeals this year
.
More recently, the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda was established in 1994 to prosecute perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide of the same year.  Interested researchers can also consult this tribunal’s official website to locate administrative documents, case documents and individual cases.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Amazing, but True, Deportation Story of Carlos Marcello

Earlier this week, the University of Houston Law Center was fortunate to have as its guest Professor Daniel Kanstroom of Boston College of Law. An expert in immigration law, he is the Director of the International Human Rights Program, and he both founded and directs the Boston College Immigration and Asylum Clinic. Speaking as the guest of the Houston Journal of International Law’s annual Fall Lecture Series, Professor Kanstroom discussed issues raised in his new book, Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora . Professor Michael Olivas introduced Professor Kanstroom to the audience, and mentioned the fascinating tale of Carlos Marcello, which Professor Kanstroom wrote about in his chapter “The Long, Complex, and Futile Deportation Saga of Carlos Marcello,” in Immigration Stories , a collection of narratives about leading immigration law cases. My interest piqued, I read and was amazed by Kanstroom’s description of one of the most interesting figures in American le...

This Day in Legal History -- Roy Cohn

Big lawyers have big personalities, and few had as big a personality as Roy Cohn who was born on this day in New York City in 1927. Cohn’s career was spent in the Washington DC—New York axis, famous in the press for his legal and social exploits, his list of famous and infamous clients, and as the poster-boy for every stereotype of the dishonest grasping lawyer. The legal career of Roy Cohn is an object lesson on the use, and abuse, of the lawyer’s power. Roy Cohn was born on February 20, 1927 in New York City. His father was a justice in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court and was well connected politically. These connections, along with a precocious intelligence which allowed him to graduate from Columbia law school at age 20, paved the way for a bright legal career. Cohn’s first job (after waiting until he turned 21 to be admitted to the bar) was as an assistant U.S. Attorney in New York. He first came to prominence in his role as a prosecutor in the Rosenberg espi...

Lessons for Today from the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda

“Man’s inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.” –Martin Luther King Jr.   Last week, I had the pleasure of attending  Professor Zachary D. Kaufman ’s presentation on  Lessons for Today from the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda  hosted by the  Johannesburg Holocaust & Geno cide Ce ntre . Among the many takeaways highlighted by Professor Kaufman and drawn from  Lessons from Rwanda: Post-Genocide Law and Policy   were ten simple yet profound lessons:   Lesson #1: Hate speech is dangerous.   To illustrate the role that hate speech played in the Rwandan genocide, Professor Kaufman discussed multiple forms of  propaganda , such as Kangura, Radio Rwanda, and RTLM “hate radio.”   He concludes that we must have limits, including with respect to social media, and further asserts that social media must do a better jo...