Victims’ right to justice, immunities and new avenues for international criminal justice

Due to the immunities foreign State officials enjoy under international law, universal jurisdiction trials fail to offer justice to victims of crimes perpetrated orchestrated by State authorities. In the ground-breaking Judgment in the Jordan Referral re Al-Bashir Appeal, the ICC Appeals Chamber’s has affirmed that immunities are inapplicable vis-à-vis international courts. While it is plausible that, as the ICC Appeals Chamber suggests, no customary rule providing immunities before international courts has taken shape, this article critically assesses which features an international court should have to be genuinely distinguishable from domestic courts - and thus not be concerned with immunities. Having established that States exercising universal jurisdiction are legally acting on behalf of the international community, but at the behest of victims, it argues that immunities are not applicable before the international criminal courts that are acting on behalf of, and at the behest of, the international community. Indeed, in contrast to domestic courts, certain international criminal courts may be specifically entrusted by the international community to take actions which may disturb the stability of international relations, the very rationale underlying personal immunity.

Alexandre Skander Galand is a postdoctoral researcher at the Hertie School. He is specialised in international criminal law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law. He is a member of the Barreau du Québec (Canada) and holds a PhD in International Law from the European University Institute (EUI). Before joining the Hertie School, he was a postdoctoral research fellow on the ERC-funded project The Individualisation of War: Reconfiguring the Ethics, Law and Politics of Armed Conflict - based at the EUI and University of Oxford. He is an associate editor of the Oxford Reports on International Human Rights Law / UN Treaty Bodies, has consulted for the Case Matrix Network and worked for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute as part of the War Crimes Justice Project.

Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the dial-in details as well as a draft paper, on which the presentation is based, via e-mail prior to the event.