Victim-Related Provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Victimological Analysis

• NCJ Number: 194785
• Journal: International Review of Victimology Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Dated: 2001 Pages: 269-289
• Author(s): Sam Garkawe
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 21 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research Paper
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Note: An earlier draft of this article was presented at the August 6-11, 2000, 10th International Symposium on Victimology, "Beyond Boundaries: Research and Action for the Third Millenium" held in Montreal, Canada.

Annotation

The article presents the author's analysis of the victim protection and victim's rights provisions of the Charter of the International Criminal Court.

Abstract

The author discusses the provisions of the legal structure of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with an emphasis on the portions of the agreement that impact victims. The ICC is a court created to provide neutral prosecution of serious human rights abuses including war crimes and genocide. The author discusses the formation of the ICC’s underlying international agreement and the history of international criminal tribunals beginning with the Nuremberg Tribunal and later efforts to address war crimes and genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He further compares the role of the victim in those early international criminal courts to the victim’s role in the new ICC. Provisions of the ICC foundation document that define the victim’s role and important victim’s rights are discussed including legal support for victim input into pre-trial and trial proceedings and the victim support provisions including procedural support mechanisms available during the legal process, victim protection mechanisms and reparations, restitution, compensation and rehabilitation provisions. In the author’s view, victims rights have been advanced in the ICC relative to earlier international criminal courts especially in the areas of victim pre-trial and trial participation, but less so in the areas of reparations and compensation. The author also identifies three areas where ICC could improve its victim sensitivity, specifically, its procedural model is not representative of "non-Western" legal systems and may serve to limit the comfort and participation of "non-Western" victims; its charter allows the ICC to proceed with prosecution even when the home country of the alleged perpetrator has elected to pursue a non-prosecutorial method of redress; and the procedural standards may create unduly lengthy trials. 9 notes, 27 references