Challenges of the Knowledge Society (Jun 2022)
JUDICIAL ADVANCES IN COMBATING SYSTEMATIC AND GENERALISED ABUSES ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Abstract
Managing systematic and generalised abuses on human rights continues to animate the academic world, practitioners, the civil society but also the public at large. People have resorted to amnesty, to criminal trials specific to the classic/traditional justice, to instruments of transitional justice such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, focusing on the rehabilitation of victims, on reparation policies, on reconciliation. The present paper, based on desk research, intends to show the manner in which international practices in the field of criminal justice and that of transitional justice regarding managing abuses perpetrated by certain political regimes have evolved. Thus, it will be observable how the retributive practices of criminal justice, focused on the punishment of those guilty, have been complemented by the restorative practices of transitional justice, which offer a particular attention to the victims. In the initial stages, military/international tribunals and international criminal courts that focused on retributive measures were established. Subsequently, the creation of the International Criminal Court shows how managing past abuses demands conjugated, complementary solutions, namely both consolidating the classic/traditional act of justice and applying the instruments of transitional justice. To this end, art. 75 of the Rome Stature introduces the notion of compensation as a reparatory measure and art. 79 establishes the creation of the Trust fund in support of victims. Hybrid tribunals (Lebanon and Cambodia) consolidate the path opened by the International Criminal Court giving a central role to victim reparations, to consolidating justice and national reconciliation.
