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The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Is a ‘Tribunal of an International Character’ Equivalent to an ‘International Criminal Court’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2008

WILLIAM A. SCHABAS
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Abstract

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is the latest international criminal tribunal to be established by the United Nations. Similar in many respects to the earlier institutions – for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone – it stands alone in the fact that its subject-matter jurisdiction does not contain any international crimes. It is thus international in some respects, but it is arguably not an international criminal tribunal in the sense that was intended by the International Court of Justice in the Yerodia case. The drafting history of the Statute of the Special Tribunal is examined with a view to determining whether the new court should treat sovereign immunity in the same manner as the other three UN criminal tribunals.

Keywords

immunitiesinternational crimesinternational criminal tribunalsUN Security Council
Type
CURRENT LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 513 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2008

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References

1. Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), Judgment of 14 February 2002, [2002] ICJ Rep. 3, para. 61.

2. UN Doc. S/RES/1757 (2007).

3. Prosecutor v. Taylor, Decision on Immunity from Jurisdiction, Case No. SCSL-2003-01-I, A. Ch., 31 May 2004.

4. UN Doc. S/2005/783 (2005).

5. UN Doc. S/RES/1644 (2005), para. 6.

6. UN Doc. S/2006/176 (2006), para. 5.

7. Ibid., para. 6.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., para. 8.

10. Ibid., para. 10.

11. Ibid., para. 11.

12. UN Doc. S/RES/1664 (2006), para. 1.

13. UN Doc. S/2006/893 (2006), para. 7.

14. Ibid., para. 9.

15. Ibid., para. 7.

16. Ibid., para. 6.

17. ‘Déclaration du Secrétaire général adjoint aux affaires juridiques, Conseiller juridique, lors des consultations officieuses tenues par le Conseil de sécurité le 20 novembre 2006’, UN Doc. S/2006/893/Add.1 (2006), para. 2.

18. Arrest Warrant case, supra note 1, at 137, para. 27 (Judge Van den Wyngaert, Dissenting Opinion). See also ibid., at 95, para. 7 (Judge Al-Khasawneh, Dissenting Opinion); ibid., at 63, paras. 73–75 (Judges Higgins, Kooijmans and Buergenthal, Joint Separate Opinion).

19. Ibid., at 46, para. 14 (Judge Oda, Dissenting Opinion).

20. 1987 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1465 UNTS 85 (1987), Art. 7.

21. 1951 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 UNTS 277 (1951), Art. 7.

22. Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Rule 11 bis; Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Rule 11 bis; Jorgic v. Germany, Judgment of 12 July 2007, ECHR application no. 74613/01, paras. 48–54, 66–70.

23. See, e.g., Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Rule 77(E); Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Rule 77(A); Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Rule 77(A).

24. 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS 90 (2002), preamble, paras. 4, 9, Arts. 1, 5(1).

25. Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Art. 6.

26. Report of the Secretary-General on the Establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, UN Doc. S/2000/915 (2000), para. 19.

27. UN Doc. S/2006/893 (2006), para. 25.

28. Ibid., para. 23.

29. Ibid., para. 24 (footnotes omitted).

30. Ibid., para. 25.

31. Statement by Mr Nicolas Michel, UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel, at the informal consultations held by the Security Council on 20 November 2006, UN Doc. S/2006/893/Add.1 (2006), para. 2.

32. On this point see W. A. Schabas, ‘Is Terrorism a Crime against Humanity?’, in H. Langholtz, B. Kondoch, and A. Wells (eds.), International Peacekeeping, The Yearbook of International Peace Operations, Vol. 8 (2003), at 255–62.

33. Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., Judgement, Case No. IT-96-23/1-A, A. Ch., 12 June 2002, para. 98.

34. 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS 90 (2002), Art. 7(2)(a).

35. M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Legislative History of the International Criminal Court: Introduction, Analysis and Integrated Text, Vol. I (2005), at 151–2. See also M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes against Humanity (1999), at 243–81.

36. Proposal Submitted by Algeria, India, Sri Lanka and Turkey on Article 5, UN Doc. A/CONF.183/C.1/L.27/Corr.1 (1998). See Boister, N., ‘The Exclusion of Treaty Crimes from the Jurisdiction of the Proposed International Criminal Court: Law, Pragmatism, Politics’, (1998) 3 Journal of Armed Conflict Law 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Robinson, ‘The Missing Crimes’, in A. Cassese, P. Gaeta and J. R. W. D. Jones (eds.), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Commentary, Vol. I (2002), at 497–525.

37. UN Doc. S/RES/1636 (2005), preamble, para. 12; UN Doc. S/RES/1664 (2006), preamble, para. 4.

38. UN Doc. S/RES/1595 (2005), preamble, para. 6; UN Doc. S/RES/1636 (2005), para. 7.

39. C. Sader, ‘A Lebanese Perspective on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’, (2007) 5 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1083, at 1087.

40. Ibid.

41. Prosecutor v. Taylor, Decision on Immunity from Jurisdiction, Case No. SCSL-2003-01-I, A. Ch., 31 May 2004, heading between paras. 36 and 37.

42. UN Doc. S/RES/1757 (2007), preamble.

43. Prosecutor v. Taylor, Decision on Immunity from Jurisdiction, Case No. SCSL-2003-01-I, A. Ch., 31 May 2004, para. 37.

44. Ibid., para. 36. See also Prosecutor v. Brima, Ruling on the Application for the Issue of a Writ of Habeas Corpus Filed by the Applicant, Case No. SCSL-03-06-PT, T. Ch., 22 July 2003.

45. Prosecutor v. Fofana, Decision on Preliminary Motion on Lack of Jurisdiction Ratione Materiae: Illegal Delegation of Powers by the United Nations, SCSL-2004–14-AR72(E), A. Ch., 25 May 2004, para. 16.

46. Ibid., para. 17.

47. Ibid., para. 24. Note that the Agreement Between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone on the Establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, 16 January 2002, nowhere refers to Security Council representation. It states, ‘The management committee shall consist of important contributors to the Special Court. The Government of Sierra Leone and the Secretary-General will also participate in the management committee.’ The Special Court for Sierra Leone does not report to the Security Council, and the Security Council has taken no action with respect to the Court since its creation except to make positive statements.

48. UN Doc. S/RES/1272 (1999); UN Doc. S/RES/1543 (2004); UN Doc. S/RES/1573 (2004). The institutions were established under the authority of the Security Council: UNTAET Regulation 2000/15 on the Establishment of Panels with Exclusive Jurisdiction over Serious Criminal Offences. See also Report to the Secretary-General of the Commission of Experts to Review the Prosecution of Serious Violations of Human Rights in Timor-Leste (then East Timor) in 1999, UN Doc. S/2005/458 (2005), Ann. II.

49. UN Doc. S/RES/1244 (1999).

50. B. Swart, ‘Cooperation Challenges for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’, (2007) 5 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1153. See also C. P. R. Romano, A. Nollkaemper, and J. K. Kleffner (eds.), Internationalised Criminal Courts and Tribunals, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Kosovo and Cambodia (2004). In addition to co-operation, Professor Swart notes that another distinction between international and internationalized courts is the primacy of the former over national jurisdictions. Perhaps I have misunderstood him, but international courts do not necessarily have primacy over national courts, as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court makes abundantly clear. See 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS 90 (2002), Art. 17.

51. See, e.g., The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies, UN Doc. S/2004/616 (2004), paras. 40, 41, 42, 45, 46.

52. Ibid., para. 43.

53. L. A. Dickinson, ‘The Promise of Hybrid Courts’, (2003) 97 AJIL 295. See also on the hybrid courts D. A. Mundis, ‘New Mechanisms for the Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law’, (2001) 95 AJIL 934; K. Ambos and M. Othmann (eds.), New Approaches in International Criminal Justice: Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and Cambodia (2003); Romano, C. P. R., ‘The Proliferation of International Judicial Bodies: The Pieces of the Puzzle’, (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Policy 709Google Scholar; Turns, D., ‘Internationalised or Ad Hoc Justice for International Criminal Law in a Time of Transition: The Cases of East Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Cambodia’, (2001) 6 Austrian Review of International and European Law 123Google Scholar.

54. Note that s. 15(2) of the UNTAET Regulation 2000/15 on the Establishment of Panels with Exclusive Jurisdiction over Serious Criminal Offences, declared that ‘immunities or special procedural rules which may attach to the official capacity of a person, whether under national or international law, shall not bar the panels from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person’. Whether such a provision is a valid exercise of the authority delegated by the Security Council has never been tested.

55. UN Doc. S/RES/731 (1992); UN Doc. S/RES/748 (1992); UN Doc. S/RES/883 (1993).

56. France et al. v. Goering et al., (1946) 22 IMT 203, at 230.

57. Ibid.

58. Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, (1951) 82 UNTS 280, Art. VII.

59. Aptel, C., ‘Some Innovations in the Statute of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’, (2007) 5 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1107, at 1110–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. Ibid. (references omitted).

61. Statute of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Arts. 2(2), 2(3).

62. 1951 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 UNTS 277 (1951), Art. 4.

63. Prosecutor v. Taylor, Decision on Immunity from Jurisdiction, Case No. SCSL-2003-01-I, A. Ch., 31 May 2004, para. 53.

64. Prosecutor v. Milošević, Decision on Preliminary Motions, Case No. IT-02-54-PT, T. Ch., 8 November 2001, paras. 26–33.

65. Arrest Warrant case, supra note 1, at 137, para. 27 (Judge Van den Wyngaert, Dissenting Opinion).

66. UN Doc. S/RES/1636 (2005); UN Doc. S/RES/1644 (2005).