The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of war victims open with an unusual provision: it is the undertaking of the contracting states ‘to respect and to ensure respect for [the Conventions] in all circumstances’. Why reaffirm that contracting states are bound to ‘respect’ their treaty obligations? Does ‘all circumstances’ add anything special to this fundamental rule of the law of treaties? And what about ‘ensure respect’: should that not be regarded as implicit in ‘respect’, in the sense of a positive counterpart to the negative duty not to violate the terms of the Conventions?

I readily admit that common Article 1 was not the first provision of the Conventions to capture my attention: there was, after all, so much to discover in these impressive structures that Article 1 could easily be passed over as an innocuous sort of opening phrase. Two things have changed this. One was the insistence of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that a State Party to the Conventions is not only itself bound to comply with its obligations under these instruments but is under a legal obligation to make sure that other States Parties do likewise. The more this thesis of the ICRC was forced upon us, the less likely it seemed to me that this could indeed be an international legal obligation upon contracting states.

On 26 March 1999, the Diplomatic Conference on the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (hereinafter, 1954 Convention), held in The Hague from 15 to 26 March 1999, adopted a Second Protocol to that Convention. The reasons leading to the elaboration and adoption of the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (hereinafter, Second Protocol) are manifold.

Firstly, armed conflicts that have taken place since the entry into force of the 1954 Convention, such as in Cambodia, the Middle East or the former Yugoslavia, have revealed its deficiencies. In particular, the Convention lacked full application, as most of the armed conflicts have been of a non-international character; furthermore, it lacked proper implementation, as the system of execution of the Convention, which is based on a functioning Protecting Power-and Commissioner General-system, proved to be unworkable in practice; and, finally, it lacked adequate provisions to cope with the extensive and systematic destruction of cultural property during armed conflict, as it contains no mandatory criminal sanctions regime.

The activities of the regime of General, then President, Pinochet after his military coup in Chile in September 1973 are politically, legally and, one might almost say, popularly, one of the landmarks in the development of the international regime of human rights. Pinochet, then Commander of the Armed Forces, led a coup against President Allende, which resulted in a Military Junta seizing power on 11 September 1973. Pinochet became President of Chile in 1974 and remained in that position until 11 March 1990, when democracy was restored. He continued on as Commander of the Armed Forces until March 1998, when he was made Senator for Life.

The legal significance of the reaction to events following the coup lies in the response of the United Nations to the excesses of the Pinochet government. The condemnation of Chile by the General Assembly for its policy of gross violations of human rights was the first occasion on which the Assembly had taken this step without invoking either a threat to the peace or a consideration of self-determination.

This article will review the jurisdiction of the new International Criminal Court (ICC) under the Rome Statute of 17 July 1998. Jurisdiction will be examined ratione personae and ratione materiae, including in each case its scope ratione temporis, concentrating on two separate aspects of jurisdiction as they appear in the Statute. These are jurisdiction to bring charges against an alleged offender and to bring that person to trial, and as a corollary, jurisdiction to detain or arrest an accused or suspected person. Given that it is early in the history of the Rome Statute, some consideration of other issues raised by the Statute is also necessary.

At the Rome Conference on the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (hereinafter, the Statute and the ICC), the negotiators faced basically three types of problems. First, a considerable number of primarily technical difficulties stemmed from the differences between national systems of criminal law. This type of problem was characteristic for the discussions on general principles of criminal law (Part 3 of the Statute), criminal procedure (Parts 5, 6 and 8) and enforcement (Part 10). Second, a more limited number of disputed questions resulted from deeply-rooted differences in legal culture. This was true for the most important controversies on penalties (Part 7), in particular for the hotly debated death penalty, and for some specific points relating to the general principles of criminal law, in particular, the treatment of voluntary intoxication. Third, delegations were forced to break the impasse with regard to a set of unresolved key issues of a highly political nature. This article deals with two sets of issues belonging to the latter category: jurisdiction and cooperation.

The respective places of jurisdiction and cooperation within the Statute, i.e., Articles 5, 12 and 13 (in Part 2) and Articles 86 to 102 (all of Part 9), tend to conceal the intimate interrelation between them. On a little closer look, though, the links between jurisdiction and cooperation become obvious. Functionally, the implementation of any set of jurisdictional rules defining the Court's sphere of activity depends on a complementary cooperation regime.Systematically, the key elements of the jurisdictional regime constitute starting points in framing the cooperation regime.

International humanitarian law applicable in non-international armed conflicts has long been characterized by the absence of universal competence to suppress serious violations of its provisions. This failure has been due to the reluctance of states – which are naturally prone to consider any limitation of their exclusive competence in this field as a threat to their sovereignty – to criminalize such acts under international law.

The first attempt at remedying such a situation was seen in the Draft Statute of an International Criminal Court (ICC), which was prepared by the International Law Commission (ILC) in 1994, and inspired by the draft articles of the Code of Crimes against the Peace and International Security of Mankind, provisionally adopted by the ILC in 1991 at first reading. Under the Draft Statute of the ICC, serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts would be under the jurisdiction of the Court. The ILC had in mind exceptionally serious war crimes, such as those described in the pertinent article of the draft code referred to by the Commission, constituting an extremely grave violation of the principles and laws of international law applicable in armed conflicts. In the commentary on this article, the ILC took care to specify that the expression ‘armed conflict’ covered the non-international armed conflicts that are the focus of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, as well as international armed conflicts.

This first step was of very limited scope. In fact, according to the ILC, in order to be criminalized, the laws and customs of war had to find their origin in general customary international law.

The development of rules governing non-international, or internal, armed conflicts has long been characterized by a profound tension between concerns of sovereignty and concerns of humanity. Historically, strong sovereignty-oriented interests dictated a slow and cautious pace of progress in this sensitive area. In recent years, however, a growing humanitarian concern for the protection of victims has prompted rapid developments in the regulation of internal armed conflict. This transformation has been greatly assisted by the establishment of the two ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda by the Security Council, in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and the operation of these bodies. Clear trends in this area include not only the articulation and recognition of a growing body of norms applicable in internal armed conflicts but also the expanding criminalization of violations of those norms. In a world where most armed conflicts are of a non-international character, these developments are of the greatest significance.

From 15 June to 17 July 1998, delegations from 160 countries assembled in Rome to negotiate and adopt a Statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC), with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Nineteen ninety-nine was a year of taking stock. For humanitarian lawyers, this was facilitated by the fact that it was a year of anniversaries. As well as being the final year of the decade of international law, it was also the centenary of the first Hague peace conference and the first Hague Convention and the fiftieth anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, providing ample occasion for reflection on the successes and failures of this branch of international law over the past century. The tone of the various commemorative meetings was chastened rather than celebratory. As one commentator noted: ‘At the end of a century which has seen so much of war and in which the laws of war have proven so comparatively ineffectual, it seems obvious that that law must be seen as deficient and the record of the last hundred years be adjudged one of failure rather than achievement. (…) Yet the principle conclusion is not that the world needs new law, or different law, but that the law which we have needs to be made more effective.’

The major developments in international humanitarian law have closely tracked a century that has seen society and the nature and aims of warfare change dramatically. Developments in the law have been reactive rather than anticipatory and have built on a model that was designed in response to imperatives that were different than those faced today and those that will be faced in the future. The time has long since passed in many countries when the state has a monopoly on violence. Entire societies have been militarised, and in many areas war has been ‘privatised’ as ‘mercenaries, rebels, mutinous gangsters emerge to exploit the decline of the state’.

Since its establishment in 1995, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has captured the attention of an international community preoccupied with the problem of dealing with crimes of the past in divided societies. While the creation of a permanent international criminal court to punish those guilty of atrocities constituting international crimes has been the first priority, the international community has, albeit grudgingly, accepted that there may be circumstances in which amnesty and reconciliation hold out more hope for troubled societies than punishment. This realisation has led to the search for an acceptable alternative to punishment that does not result in absolute amnesty for those guilty of gross human rights abuses. The South African model, of conditional amnesty accompanied by the uncovering of the past, appears to offer such an alternative. This factor, together with the relief over the fact that apartheid has at last been laid to rest, accounts for the interest shown in the South African experience.

The present note will not attempt to describe and analyse the South African precedent in detail. Instead it will provide an overview of the history, establishment and work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC); examine the significance of the Report of the TRC for international humanitarian law; and consider the status of amnesty under contemporary international law in the context of the South African experience.

‘We are witnessing today an historic event. An entire category of weapons of mass destruction has been banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention … Pause for a moment, if you will, and consider the symbolism, but more importantly the significance of this act. It is not merely a great step in the cause of disarmament and nonproliferation. It is not merely a signal of restraint and discipline in war. It is much more. It is a momentous act of peace.’

The adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court in July 1998 in Rome was the culmination of years of effort by the international community. Under Article 126, the Statute will enter into force once it is ratified by 60 states. As many states will have to enact national legislation or even change their constitutions before ratification to comply with the obligations of the Statute, the required number of ratifications will probably not be reached in the short term.

Besides, a number of tasks still remain to be undertaken by states, as indicated in the Statute itself, namely, drafting of a document called ‘Elements of Crimes’ (EOC), drafting of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE) and reaching agreement on the definition of the crime of aggression. Therefore, the UN General Assembly has mandated a Preparatory Commission (PrepCom) to prepare draft texts of the RPE and EOC and proposals for a provision on aggression, including its definition, elements and the conditions under which the International Criminal Court (ICC) shall exercise its jurisdiction with respect to this crime. The drafts of the EOC and RPE must be finalized by 30 June 2000, when they should be formally adopted. The definition of aggression does not have to be agreed on until the first review conference seven years after the entry into force of the Statute. In addition to these tasks, which this article will describe in greater detail, the PrepCom will work on a relationship agreement between the Court and the United Nations, basic principles governing a headquarters agreement and financial regulations and rules.

With the passing into law of the War Crimes Act of 1991, the United Kingdom joined common law states such as Canada and Australia in conferring upon its domestic courts jurisdiction to try individuals suspected of having committed war crimes in Europe during the Second World War. Under the 1991 Act, proceedings for murder, manslaughter or culpable homicide may be brought, with the consent of the Attorney-General, against any person who, on 8 March 1990 or later, became a British citizen or resident in the United Kingdom, providing that the offence charged is alleged to have been committed between 1 September 1939 and 4 June 1945 in a place which was, at the material time, part of Germany or under German occupation. The Act further provides that the offence charged must have constituted a violation of the laws and customs of war under international law at the time it was committed. In addition, the Act stipulates that the nationality of the alleged offender at the time the alleged offence was committed is immaterial.