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16 Tul. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 117 (2007-2008)
The Customary International Law Duty to Prosecute Crimes against Humanity: A New Framework

handle is hein.journals/tulicl16 and id is 121 raw text is: The Customary International Law Duty To Prosecute Crimes Against Humanity: A New Framework Miles M. Jackson* Within its assumed analytical framework, contemporary scholarship cannot assert plausibly that customary international law imposes a duty on states to prosecute crimes against humanity Amnesties are necessarily inconsistent with a duty to prosecute, and the sheer glut of state practice granting amnesties in times of crisis to perpetrators of these crimes is seen to prevent the duty to prosecute from arising Although scholars recognize the normative shortcomings of tis conclusion, this is the position the present analytical framework requires. A new framework alters the outcome. This Article transplants the derogation provisions of international human rights law into customary international law, retrospectively analyzing the six well-known amnesties. If the amnesty in question was granted at a 'me ofpublic emergency as defined in the human rights instruments, it should properly be seen as derogation from the putative duty to prosecute rather than state practice contradicting the assertion of that duty This new analytical framework diverts the bulk of state practice seen by scholars to be contrary to the duty to prosecute into a separate category constituting an exception from that duty Combined with new evidence in support of the duty it is now plausible to assert that customary international law imposes on states a duty to prosecute crimes against humanity from which a small derogation exception is carved I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 118 II. THE STATE OF THE LITERATURE AT PRESENT ................................... 121 A. The Idealist Position ................................................................ 121 B. The Realist Position ................................................................ 123 III. UPDATING THE IDEALIST POSITION .................................................. 126 A . Introduction ............................................................................. 126 B. Aut Dedere Aut Judicare as a Customary Law Principle ..... 126 C Decisions ofInternadonal and Nadonal Courts .................... 129 D The R om e Statute ................................................................... 131 E CommandResponsibilit ....................................................... 132 IV A NEW FRAMEWORK ........................................................................ 134 A . Introducton ............................................................................. 134 B. The Thresholds ofDerogation ................................................ 135 C Challenges to Derogation ....................................................... 137 V THE NEW FRAMEWORK APPLIED ..................................................... 140 A . Introduction ............................................................................. 140 * © 2007 Miles M. Jackson. LL.M. Harvard University. BA (Jurisprudence) Oxford University. I would like to thank Professors Ryan Goodman and William Alford, Jane Bestor, and the editors of the Tulane Journal oflnternational & Comparative Law. All errors remain my own.