The Importance of Prosecuting International Crimes
The prosecution of severe international crimes—including as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—is a necessary to enforce international criminal law and deliver justice to victims.
This is an important component of transitional justice, or the process of transforming societies into rights-respecting democracies and addressing past human rights violations.
Investigations and trials of leaders who have committed crimes and caused mass political or military atrocities is a key demand of victims of human rights abuses. Prosecution of such criminals can play a key role in restoring dignity to victims, and restoring trusting relationships in society.
The International Criminal Court, as described below, can play an important role in prosecuting international crimes in cases where domestic courts are unwilling or unable to do so.
Read more about this topic: International Criminal Law
Famous quotes containing the words importance and/or crimes:
“The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... how have I used rivers, how have I used wars
to escape writing of the worst thing of all—
not the crimes of other, not even our own death,
but the failure to want our freedom passionately enough
so that blighted elms, sick rivers, massacres would seem
mere emblems of that desecration of ourselves?”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)