Amnesty, Serious Crimes and International Law examines the permissibility of amnesties for serious crimes in the contemporary international order. In the last few decades, there has been a growing tendency to consider that amnesties are prohibited in respect of certain grave crimes. However, the question remains controversial as there is no explicit treaty ban and general amnesties continue to be frequently issued in post-conflict and transitional contexts. The first part of the book explores the use of amnesties from antiquity to the present day. It reviews amnesty traditions in ancient societies and provides a global picture of modern amnesties. In parallel, it traces the development of the accountability paradigm underpinning the current prohibitive stance on amnesties. The second part assesses the position of modern international law on amnesties. It comprehensively analyses the main arguments supporting the existence of a general amnesty ban, including the duty to prosecute international crimes, the right to redress of victims of human rights violations, international standards and trends in state practice, and the mandate of international criminal courts. The book argues that, while international legal or policy requirements restrict the freedom of states to extend amnesty in respect of serious crimes, or the effectiveness of amnesty measures in preventing the prosecution of such crimes, these restrictions do not add up to an absolute and universal prohibition.

Much of the recent scholarly writings and debates on amnesty have revolved around its lawfulness, when granted in respect of the most serious crimes under international law committed in the context of civil armed conflicts. The inconclusiveness of international law on this issue - with positive international law and opinio juris calling for criminal prosecution, and State's practice favouring practical political solutions - does nothing more than deepen the confusion already affecting the international legality of national amnesties. Building on emerging trends in State's practice, this book attempts to clarify the question of the legality of national amnesties for crimes against humanity by suggesting a compromised legal framework within which amnesty and accountability can both be accommodated.

The determination of the

This edited volume brings together well-established and emerging scholars of transitional justice to discuss the persistence of amnesty in the age of human rights accountability. The volume attempts to reframe debates, moving beyond the limited approaches of 'truth versus justice' or 'stability versus accountability' in which many of these issues have been cast in the existing scholarship. The theoretical and empirical contributions in this book offer new ways of understanding and tackling the enduring persistence of amnesty in the age of accountability. In addition to cross-national studies, the volume encompasses eleven country cases of amnesty for past human rights violations: Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and Uruguay. The volume goes beyond merely describing these case studies, but also considers what we learn from them in terms of overcoming impunity and promoting accountability to contribute to improvements in human rights and democracy.

Explores how the first treaty-based UN international tribunal's judges innovatively applied the law to perpetrators of international crimes in one of the worst conflicts in recent history.

Amnesty laws are political tools used since ancient times by states wishing to quell dissent, introduce reforms, or achieve peaceful relationships with their enemies. In recent years, they have become contentious due to a perception that they violate international law, particularly the rights of victims, and contribute to further violence. This view is disputed by political negotiators who often argue that amnesty is a necessary price to pay in order to achieve a stable, peaceful, and equitable system of government. This book aims to investigate whether an amnesty necessarily entails a violation of a state's international obligations, or whether an amnesty, accompanied by alternative justice mechanisms, can in fact contribute positively to both peace and justice. This study began by constructing an extensive Amnesty Law Database that contains information on 506 amnesty processes in 130 countries introduced since the Second World War. The database and chapter structure were designed to correspond with the key aspects of an amnesty: why it was introduced, who benefited from its protection, which crimes it covered, and whether it was conditional. In assessing conditional amnesties, related transitional justice processes such as selective prosecutions, truth commissions, community-based justice mechanisms, lustration, and reparations programmes were considered. Subsequently, the jurisprudence relating to amnesty from national courts, international tribunals, and courts in third states was addressed. The information gathered revealed considerable disparity in state practice relating to amnesties, with some aiming to provide victims with a remedy, and others seeking to create complete impunity for perpetrators. To date, few legal trends relating to amnesty laws are emerging, although it appears that amnesties offering blanket, unconditional immunity for state agents have declined. Overall, amnesties have increased in popularity since the 1990s and consequently, rather than trying to dissuade states from using this tool of transitional justice, this book argues that international actors should instead work to limit the more negative forms of amnesty by encouraging states to make them conditional and to introduce complementary programmes to repair the harm and prevent a repetition of the crimes. David Dyzenhaus "This is one of the best accounts in the truth and reconciliation literature I've read and certainly the best piece of work on amnesty I've seen." Diane Orentlicher "Ms Mallinder's ambitious project provides the kind of empirical treatment that those of us who have worked on the issue of amnesties in international law have long awaited. I have no doubt that her book will be a much-valued and widely-cited resource."

This book offers the first comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the provisions of the ‘Malabo Protocol’—the amendment protocol to the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights—adopted by the African Union at its 2014 Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The Annex to the protocol, once it has received the required number of ratifications, will create a new Section in the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights with jurisdiction over international and transnational crimes, hence an ‘African Criminal Court’. In this book, leading experts in the field of international criminal law analyze the main provisions of the Annex to the Malabo Protocol. The book provides an essential and topical source of information for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of international criminal law, and for all readers with an interest in political science and African studies. Gerhard Werle is Professor of German and Internationa l Crimina l Law, Criminal Procedure and Modern Legal History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Director of the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice. In addition, he is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape and Honorary Professor at North-West University of Political Science and Law (Xi’an, China). Moritz Vormbaum received his doctoral degree in criminal law from the University of Münster (Germany) and his postdoctoral degree from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is a Senior Researcher at Humboldt-Universität, as well as a coordinator and lecturer at the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice.