The limits of international criminal justice

The International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague has been in existence since 1993. In 2002, the International Criminal Court came into being. In the meantime, other international courts dealing with serious violations of human rights have been established, and the creation of others has been discussed. Poland’s governments have been supportive of this tendency in international justice and juridicial cooperation from the beginning. In the meantime, the support of the ICC is one of the major elements of the emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union.

Controversies

Nevertheless, only a few Polish experts are busy with this problem and public controversies about the ICC have been focused on its impact on transatlantic relations. Only a few scientific articles have been dedicated to the issue of international criminal justice and there has been practically no discussion on this issue. On the other hand, Polish non-governmental organizations have already enlarged their fields of activity far beyond Europe and are active in countries, where the ‘acquis’ of the ICC may become (or already are – like in Chechnya) very important. Poland sends representatives, officers and judges to international courts and has always been very active in international missions of the United Nations.

Goals

Therefore we would like to achieve the following goals:

• to exchange knowledge, opinions and experiences between practitioners, scientists and NGO’s interested in international criminal justice;
• to establish a network of Polish and foreign NGO’s, scientists and practitioners, in which it will be possible to exchange views and information also after the project has ended;
• to initiate discussions about the links and interactions between peace-keeping, peace-enforcing, conflict prevention and international justice on a interdisciplinary basis;
• to help the participants of the network to organize workshops for practitioners (NGO’s) and stimulate the proliferation of the ICC acquis in Polish society;
• to incite a discussion about the chances and limits of international criminal justice and the lessons, that can be drawn from the activity of existing international tribunals (mainly the ICTY) for future tribunals ad hoc and for the ICC.

Steps

Till now, the project has been advanced on a step-to-step basis, with small grants from different Donors in Poland and Germany. From 2005 on, we cooperate with the Berlin based Fund for Remembrance, Reconciliation and Future and the Kreisau Foundation in Krzyżowa near Wrocław trying to link two projects together: our research network, at the moment consisting of academics in Hamburg, Wrocław, Warsaw, Vienna, Belgrade and Butare/Ruanda and an education project, in which pupils and students simulate court proceedings before an international criminal tribunal (in December 2005 this was the ICTY and the Nuremberg Tribunal). At the moment, we are trying to find funds for a more stable foundation to the project. There are already several students preparing PHD and masters’ theses on issues connected to the project, and several publications are being prepared.

Contact

For more information on the project, please contact Klaus Bachmann (bachmann@wbz.uni.wroc.pl) or Anna Skwarek (annaskwarek@wp.pl).

Klaus Bachmann, Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wrocław